Battle Harbour is a neat historic island in Newfoundland and Labrador. It offers a unique glimpse into the hardships of the sealing and fishing industry. Battle Harbour was founded in the 1970s with most people resettling in 1966 when the fishing industry declined. It is now a historical site with some summer homes and tourist accommodations.
We have visited Battle Harbour twice on day trips. This site doesn’t offer a “hike” in the sense of walking a long distance. It does have a loop that goes around the entire island. On this footpath, you walk through a graveyard and up a hillside onto the top of the hill. There you have spectacular views of the ocean. On one trip, we spotted icebergs in the distance.
The moss and lichen growing on the rocks is fascinating. During a visit, there was a tourist who was sunning herself on the moss. The hot sun had dried it, making the moss a dry bed to rest on. If we had more time, we might have tried it ourselves. With the sound of the waves and a light breeze, it was a tempting to do the same.
For our trips to Battle Harbour, we went on day trips. We took a boat from Mary’s Harbour and arrived at Battle Harbour just before lunch. We had enough time for a quick walk around the island before lunch. The serve the meals family style at the dining hall. They have large tables for groups of about six people each. The freshly baked buns are always a treat for the guests. We had chicken pot pie for lunch, which was delicious. They do ask about diet restrictions before you arrive at the island and will give you an option.
After lunch, they offer a guided tour of the buildings on the island. You will learn about the salting of fish and processing of seal. Many of the tour guides either grew up on the island or had family members who did. They are full of knowledge and are ready to answer your questions. Whenever we have been there, they were always working on the maintenance of the buildings and the docks. The volunteers take a lot of care to maintain the site.
Battle Harbour is one of those places that if you can spend a longer time there, you should. There is limited internet at Battle Harbour, which helps you disconnect from the world for a while. You can find internet in the loft building if you really need access. The quietness of the Battle Harbour offers gives you a chance to slow down and breathe. And when you breathe, you take in the fresh air around you.
If you take advantage of their accommodations, you can really slow down your walk around the island to stop and reflect on the different views along the way. Often we have found people sitting on the rocks staring out at the ocean. They also are checking out the foundation from the old wireless radio station and the site of an old airplane crash. Parts from the crash are still there to observe.
We hope to return for a third time and stay for a weekend. Our visits have always felt rushed and we always say we need more time. Again, Battle Harbour is not a trail but offers an experience that we highly recommend should you be in Newfoundland and Labrador. It isn’t every day you can visit an island such as this and look out at the endless ocean in all directions.
Another daylong adventure I took boys on while we lived in Southern Alberta was Turtle Mountain. It sounds innocuous if you aren’t from the area, but if you are there is another connotation entirely.
View from the top of Turtle Mountain – you can see the slide at the bottom of the photo with the highway passing through it (2019)
Turtle Mountain, when you are driving through the Crowsnest Pass is unmissable. Why? Because the side of the mountain sheared off in 1903, crashing down onto the coal mining town of Frank, burying it and the railroad under millions of tons of rock and killing as many as 90 people. To this day, it feels like you are driving through a rock quarry as the entire foot of the valley is covered in boulders.
There is a trail on this mountain though. If you drive west up the valley past the slide, you come to a town called Coleman, and if you drive into town and bear to the southeast, you will find a trailhead. The hike is 7 km return, up and back, with about 900m to the top of the remaining peak.
I elected to take my twins up there. In retrospect, probably ill-advised, as I did not realize how nervous I would be with them near (less than 5m) away from the sheer cliff that is the slide face. They were good boys though, they listened and never went really close.
The view of Coleman after some altitude gains (2019)One of the cracks in the mountain (2019)The boys found a windbreak shelter to hide in (2019)
The hike up was steady, with views of the town behind us. The trail mostly stays on the side of the mountain away from the slide, and does get steeper and more exposed as we got close to the top. What I found particularly interesting… or possibly unnerving, was that when we got to that zone, we wove amongst cracks in the stone that sometimes descended a couple meters down.
I was able to see firsthand how the slide happened – snow and ice had built up in some of these cracks, and with the spring thaw, ice has an interesting characteristic. Water decreases in volume as it cools to 4 degrees Celsius, but below 4 it actually begins to expand – this is what gives ice its buoyancy. Unfortunately, this freezing and thawing cycle can be so dramatic it can fracture rock. So one day the ice got too deep and expanded a little too much with a freeze cycle, and broke the mountain.
A notch in the rock looking down on the slide area (2019)
So this hike is great for geology lessons, and for incredible views of the slide and the pass. I heartily recommend it for a dayhike, even with kids!
Somehow writing this post slipped my mind for 3 years. Despite its importance in a number of ways – for one, I visited a bunch of times, and another – it was a critical part of our preparation for Section C of the Great Divide Trail. We spent most of 3 years in Cold Lake, AB and this was the longest and most accessible trail for us to hike locally.
During our time up there I always meant to thru-hike the trail. At 128km, it’s a nice length for a 4-5 day trip, though the trail is advertised as a 7 day trip. However, despite my shoes stepping on 90% of the trail, I never did get to do the thru-hike.
You can take a look at my previous post about how to book the Boreal Trail. However, since I wrote that post, they have released a better more current trail guide. It can be downloaded here. In my several trips out to it, I have learned that despite it feeling like it is administratively rigid, it is not. The park staff straight up told me that it’s fine to hike the trail, then retroactively pay for camp spots and such. This was as of 2022, so double check to see if they have tightened up the regulations.
Dec 2020. A little hoarfrost never hurt anyone…
On to my trips on the trail: first was a dayhike in the winter with a friend of mine. We wanted to do some “rucking” training, so we drove out to the park one Saturday with about 30lbs on our backs to walk the first 20km. We parked one car at one end and one at the other of the section we planned to do – the Cold River camp (BT1) to Sandy Beach, a frontcountry campsite on the trail. While on that walk we passed by BT2, a pretty little backcountry camping spot on a spit of land that juts out into Pierce Lake. It has a bear locker, elevated barbeque cooking spots, and several flat areas to pitch tents. It also has an adjacent “Green throne” privy set back from the camp.
My second trip was a spring overnight with one of my sons. We the the same route as the one I did in the winter, and camped at BT2 before hiking out to Sandy Beach, and the sunset was well worth it. Some swarms of mayflies liked the spot we pitched our tent, but that really was our only complaint. The way to Sandy Beach was more complicated in the spring than in the winter, as there was some beaver dam problems that flooded certain spots on the trail, but there was a way around.
My third trip was with the same son, another daytrip hike. We parked a little past Sandy Beach at the trailhead for Humphrey Lake and Humphrey Tower – the former location of a fire tower turned viewpoint on a knoll above the surrounding terrain. We hiked up to the tower site, skirting around one shore of Humphrey Lake, a little pond not really accessible for water (it’s swampy around the edges) but nice for waterfowl. The climb up the hill was brisk, and at the top, we were saddened to see that the tower had been burned down by vandals. But it was cleared in one direction, so we did have some nice views to enjoy a break at. We continued on to the narrows between Pierce Lake and Lapine Lake, where we had lunch before turning back to the car. On the return trip we did the other shore of Humphrey Lake which makes a nice little circle for dayhikers.
The remains of the tower, May 2021
My fourth trip to the park was another overnight with that same son. He was a trooper that year! This time we had our sights set on a backcountry site set back from the rest – if you are thru-hiking you’d probably skip it as it’s up on a spur trail north of the main route. We parked the car at Grieg Lake near the east end of the park, and hiked up to BT9 on Fourth Mustus Lake. We chose this site because we brought my dog, Watson with us and he was a little unpredictable with people (he was an SPCA rescue) so we wanted to have a campsite with nobody around. The trail was sandy and mostly easygoing, and once again we were treated with a beautiful camping spot.
Nemo Hornet 1P and Durston XMid 1P at 4th Mustus Lake, May 2021
At that time (2021) there was no privy at that campground, and the picnic table was in bad repair but there was a working bear locker. But the tent sites were glorious and roomy, and we never saw another soul. We spent the evening after supper exploring some game trails on the north side of the lake, then tried to put the dog to bed. He didn’t go down easy, refusing to sleep in the vestibule. He ended up being off leash all night, and patrolled around us while we slept. Around midnight something got his attention because he bolted off barking at something, but he never left earshot and returned after being satisfied that whatever it was was not coming back. Glad there was nobody else there to be disturbed by him! Lesson learned.
Crossing the creek on the way to 4th Mustus Lake, May 2021
My fifth trip was again with that same son, and we were aiming to do the whole trail. We started at Cold River this time, and once again camped at BT2. The next day we pushed pretty hard, and made it to BT3 by midafternoon. We could have gone further but the clouds had socked us in and the wind was blowing, and rain was beginning to make us miserable, so we set up our tents and hoped that the rain would slacken for some soggy dinner. The camping was down a rise next to the river, and the dinner spot with a firepit was at the top of the rise by the trail – so was the bear locker. After warming up a bit we came out and had an early dinner, but the weather was still miserable so we just hunkered down early for the night.
Supper at BT2, Pierce Lake, late May 2021
The next morning dawned sunny and nice, to the point where we could get a better sense of the place. It was an old forest fire clearing formed in 2011. The wind affected us because there were few large trees to break the wind. The river was quite nice though, and we took some snaps of a half dozen or so white pelicans who were punting around the rocks in the stream. Then we pushed on.
Campsite at BT3 before the rain hit, from the eating plance. Bear locker just off camera to the left. Late May 2021
Sadly, my son’s feet were not as conditioned as mine to long trail days. By the time we pulled up in BT4 on Lac Des Iles he was pretty out of gas. We took a long break sunning ourselves on the functionally private beach there (Highly recommend this camp for a stop!) and then tried pushing on. We got to Murray Doell frontcountry camp (in the middle of another burn, so hot and sunny also beat us down) and then shortly after, we made it out to a road crossing and made the decision to call for an extraction. Still, got to see a lot of the park, and good quality time with my boy.
Beach at BT4 on Lac des Iles – contemplating sore feet and solitude. Late May 2021
My sixth trip to the trail was in the training runup for our Great Divide Trail Section C trip. At this time my wife had decided to accompany me, but we needed to prepare her. So first order of business was to test her feet and our big four with an overnight. We selected a start at Jack Pine and hike into BT7 on the Waterhen River. We pitched my newly acquired, slightly used Durston XMid 2P above the river at sunset and it was lovely. The campsite had treed or open grassy field options, good fishing spots on the river, and well kept Bear Lockers. The trail used to go from BT7 east to the chalet and then north, but north of the chalet they had some beaver flooding issues, so they elected to close that part of the trail.
BT7 on Waterhen River, August 2021.
The following date we pushed for a longer day, crossing Mistohay Creek (nice views), passing the visitor center, and continuing on past BT5 to the Gold Creek area. There was some gravel roadwalking in this section, and the hot August sun beat down on us pretty ferociously. We had to hunt for water a few times in the drier stretches. Towards the end of our time in between the Murray Doell and BT5 area, it was quite hilly and nice. But we decided to call the trip there, almost connecting to where my son had left the trail on the previous trip.
Crossing the Mistohay, August 2021
All told, I probably got to see 80% of the trail, and the only significant backcountry stretch I didn’t get to hike was from Jack Pine to Kimball Lake area – most of the rest was roadwalk I was not sorry to miss.
I’d call it a well kept, well maintained set of trails for the most part, with well appointed campsites, though they frown on random camping. The challenge level is not Rocky Mountains, but there are hilly sections, and I’d definitely call it a good early season warmup hike, or late season final go before the snow flies. It is hikeable by May, and can still be done well into the fall (though make sure you hike in blaze orange in the fall!) If you’re in AB/SK, it’s definitely worth the trip!
Looking east from the top of Table Mountain (2018)
Before the longer trips, our children were young. We had neither the types of jobs nor the ambition of some of these homeschooling families who I have heard about hiking the big trails in the USA. But passion for hiking was not going to be denied. So, I sought out hikes in the Rockies I could do with my sons as they grew up. One of the earliest I discovered was Table Mountain, just behind Pincher Creek in southern Alberta.
Perched on the south side of the pass entrance with commanding views of the transition from Rockies to foothills to plains, I was excited to get up there. I had heard of others who took kids up, so I figured it was attainable. Turns out I was in for some surprises.
The trail starts from Beaver Mines Lake Campground. It starts out fairly nicely, then begins some steep undulations as you get your start around the back shoulder of the peak. The draw that the trail follows has a little creek at the bottom but you aren’t really near it until you reach the “good parts”. A couple of kms in they start! The trail becomes more of a scramble as you ascend some very rocky areas to get to a winding switchback over scree. Some people descend by sliding down the scree. I do not recommend scree shortcuts uphill! It’s hard enough!
The boys ascend. Steep parts ahead! (2012)The dead tree once gave shade… (2012)
After ascending the very steep bit (for quite some time) the trail becomes a more gradual ascent and very dry. Bring water, you’ll be hot and need it. A cool skeleton of a tree hangs over the trail as the only memory of a time when this path had shade. Finally, as you come over the lip to the table area, you will see low scrubby trees in bunches and a couple of makeshift rocky walls to hide behind if you come up on blustery days. I am pretty sure on the second trip I spotted a bear den in the scrubby trees… I didn’t crawl in to check.
The first ascent I took my three oldest boys when they were still in single digits (2012). They complained of course on the steep bits but it made good memories. The second ascent several years later (2018) I took my youngest (twins) and a teenage friend of the family. We ascended in the afternoon, and got some stunning pictures from the top of the sun making its way closer to the line of mountains to the west. But the biggest treat was the descent: when we made it past the steep bit, the remainder of the descent was pointed right at the sunset and made for some of the best photos I have ever taken.
Almost to the top… (2012)
All in all, I really liked the mix of terrain and the challenge that the trail gives – enough to make you earn the summit but not enough to stop you. Bring adventurous children who are up for a challenge – this hike isn’t for city kids! But even if you don’t have little folks, it’s a great spot for anyone. I seem to recall a marriage proposal on one of our hikes up here!
The Twins enjoying a sunset on the way down (2018). This isn’t even the best shot I took.
