K & L's Travel Blog

22 September 2025

Mary & Star left early in the morning. We decide to head to White Point & Cabot Landing, two destinations that I’d added to our itinerary when it looked as though all trails in the National Park would be closed due to fire risk. 

The drive is lovely. Although it is not the woodland pristine experience you get on the Cabot Trail, there are villages and churches and small communities along the way. White Point is a small village with a scenic harbor. On our approach, I ask Kitty to pull over in a drive so I can get a photo of the boats and lobster traps. 

As I get out of the car a man approaches. I immediately go into my defensive mode, apologizing for the intrusion until I realize (once again) I am in Canada and he is not some redneck homophobe, he is just curious to meet me and make conversation. We chat for several minutes. He says “You can walk up there by the harbor and drink wine and eat lunch.” Then “And up on White Point, nobody will bother you if you bring a bottle of wine.” Clearly there is a theme here. Even though it’s 9:00, there is a faint smell of wine on his breath, but he is very nice and funny. He complains about how folks are not respecting the land and trashing White Point, and gives us a good tip where to park. As we are standing there a car flies up the hill past us with its cargo door wide open. He laughs and says we should keep our eyes open on the roadside when we leave. 

I say my farewells (no, we didn’t share a bottle) and we park at the dock as he’d recommended. As we walk up to the trail, we spy a pair of walking sticks on the roadside, apparently fallen from the speeding car. We prevaricate on the ethics, but decide in the end given Kitty’s fall yesterday, they are like a gift. She takes them up and gets the swing of it right away. 

It’s a good trail to have some support as it’s rocky and uneven, but what a sight when one gets to the cape! It’s an expansive, open space with a rocky, granite surface and loads of wildflowers. On the trail in, I was intoxicated by the sweet smell of honey or vanilla and read later on an information sign on the S. Shore it may have been Joe Pye Weed that was lining the trail. 

We make our way to the top and find a rock near a ledge where we can enjoy our lunch. Two other women our age are there with a few others, but it feels quite isolated. After an hour or so we pick our way back down the trail and head on to a beach-side park.

Cabot’s Landing Provincial Park in the North Cape marks the site where explorer John Cabot landed in 1497. It’s a grassy area with access to a lovely, crescent beach. There are only a couple of people there, so we sit and enjoy the view and I walk the beach.

On the ride back we stopped for a couple of photo ops before heading home for a local Kielbasa sausage with peppers & onions supper. A beautiful sunset tops off another great day in Cape Breton.