Autumn Leaf Watch, Weekly Report

NOTE: The following is the fourth in a series of weekly Nova Scotia Autumn Leaf Watch reports planned for this fall. Compiled by the Department of Tourism and Culture, the report includes summary paragraphs at the top of each trail section that can be lifted and used for a shorter report.

Celebrate Thanksgiving at the many events held throughout the province this weekend and see the autumn colours brought out by the first frosts of the season.

Region 1: Evangeline Trail

There's a surge of autumn colour all across the Evangeline Trail; a rich fullness of tints and tones to please the eye and tickle the soul.

• Site 1, Arcadia: The first frost has painted a third of the landscape red, orange and yellow.

• Site 2, Ellenwood Lake Provincial Park: A third of the site is bathed in bright red and orange and there are patches of yellow and brown.

• Site 5, Digby: Fifteen per cent of autumn colour is bursting forth. There are pockets of red and yellow on the hillside overlooking Digby Harbour. A quarter of the ferns are a golden yellow mixed with brown and green. Half the maple is tinted red and orange, and here and there the birch is showing yellow. The shoreline is gradually taking on the warm hues of fall, and leaves are beginning to drop and line the trail path.

Smith's Cove: Almost a quarter of the area is a patchwork of autumn colours. Red maple, sugar maple and pin-cherry are beginning to turn fiery red while white and grey birch, and Indian pear and maple are changing to ochre and yellow. Bracken and other fern is completely cast in sienna. Cones from white and red spruce, and alder are a tawny brown and the horse chestnut leaves have turned brown and fallen off. The ash is becoming yellow and purple.

• Site 6, Bear River: The hills along the river are spotted with red and orange in the sugar maple, pin-cherry, staghorn sumac and choke-cherries. Fern and grass is becoming cast in gold. The best place to view the river and the fall colours is from the Purdy- Chute Road leading into Bear River.

Greenwich: About 25 per cent of the trees at Deep Hollow Road have changed or are in the process of changing color. Some dramatic reds and oranges are appearing among the muted greens, yellows, browns and purples of the foliage.

• Site 8, Aylesford: Along the North Mountain a tinge of colour is showing in some of the branches.

• Site 11, The Lookoff (north of Canning): Bursts of red and yellow are appearing on the upper branches of trees while the patchwork fields below are becoming a burnished work of art.

Come to one of the world's oldest and biggest giant pumpkin contests in Windsor, Saturday, Oct. 7 and see pumpkins over 900 pounds.

Enjoy a taste of Nova Scotia food products while watching the grape stomping contests in Falmouth at the Harvest Wine Fest on Saturday, Oct. 7.

Explore history at the Prescott House Museum in Starr's Point, near Wolfville. Hear the family's story and find out the role some of them played in the field of medicine and the First World War.

Visit the antique treasures at North Hills Museum featuring changing displays of antiques from the Robert Patterson collection. The Granville Ferry runs daily to Oct. 15.

Region 2: Glooscap and Sunrise Trails

A startling palette of autumn hues both bright and subtle has painted the landscape of the Glooscap and Sunrise Trails a picturesque must-see.

• Site 13, Gore: Shimmering russets, reds and browns are scattered throughout the sugar maple, red maple, pin-cherry, yellow birch and grasses of Courthouse Hill, while patches of colour are beginning to appear in the distant valley.

• Site 15, Burntcoat Head Park: Apples spread under the trees are creating a real down-home feeling. Patchy crimson, copper, gold and amber colour about a quarter of the leaves, grass and bush, and the flower gardens are still hanging on.

• Site 16, Shubenacadie: Some colour is appearing among the blueberry, maple and burning-bush. Cherry, sumac and grasses are beginning to turn. A medley of red, orange, yellow and brown is starting to appear in the red maple, sugar maple, yellow birch, poplar, ash and oak behind the church overlooking the Shubenacadie River.

• Site 18, Five Islands: Washes of colour are appearing with plum-coloured mountain-ash, scarlet staghorn sumac and the red oak and cedar a rich orange. White birch, yellow birch, aspen and the grasses are yellowing.

• Site 19, Kirkhill: Some maples are turning a bright scarlet and the grasses are tinged with amber.

Cape d'Or: Autumn is just beginning to tint the landscape with mountain-ash and blueberries turning red, sugar maple orange, and white birch, yellow birch and aspen going yellow. Shrub, fern and grass is becoming washed in shades of earth tone and dappled with brown alder.

• Site 21, Amherst: The grass is completely picturesque in shades of brown, and over half the site is coloured autumn-bright.

• Site 22, Fenwick: Almost half the site is breaking out in flame-coloured red maple and blueberry, and yellow-ochre white birch and white ash.

• Site 23, Wentworth: The highest points of the mountain are awash in amber-yellow, while below the softwood is mixed with 10 per cent gold from the yellow birch and beech trees. Elsewhere pockets of colour are starting with the sugar maple, red maple and mountain-ash reddening, choke-cherry becoming orange, and alder going brown.

Wentworth High Head: In addition to maple, sections of birch are turning yellow on the far mountains. Along the river bright hues of red tinged with orange are starting to show. Up to a quarter of the slopes are adorned in bright fall colours, from the reds of sugar maple, red maple, pin-cherry and blueberry to the golds of the white and yellow birch, fern and grass. Take a chairlift ride up to see fall's splendor on Oct. 7 at the Wentworth Valley Fall Festival of Colours.

• Site 24, Wallace: Some colour is beginning to show up in patches of red and gold among the still predominantly green foliage. Shoreline grass is turning coppery and geese have arrived in the harbour.

• Site 25, Balmoral Mills: Tops of the maple trees are pocketed in red, orange and yellow.

Nuttby Mountain: Stands of red maple contrast richly against the light golden-browns and yellow-greens of sugar maple and beech. Photographers love the abandoned grey farm house in front of the background of autumn colours on Highway 311 at the top of the mountain.

• Site 26, Mount Thom: Splendid colours are patched over a quarter of the site, with red maple the most advanced and tinged a brighter red along their bottom edges. Sugar maple is beginning to show yellow and ash is turning purple in the lower areas. Blueberry fields are now peaked at a very bright deep red.

• Site 27, Greenhill: A third of the vegetation that will turn colour is glowing in patches of red and yellow.

• Site 28, Marshy Hope: There's a growing ruddy cast of colour in the vegetation throughout the rolling hills and steeply-sided valley. Sugar maple is displaying red, orange and yellow. Bright red is tinging the staghorn sumac and golden yellow the white birch, yellow birch and aspen, while shrub and fern is bronzing up.

• Site 30, Pomquet: The south-facing hill overlooking the salt marsh and brook emptying into Pomquet Harbour is splashed with vermilion red maple and birch going yellow. Poison ivy is a distinct peachy-orange going deep maroon, and sarsaparilla is beginning to go sandy-yellow.

Come see an exhibit of art depicting scenes of a Pictou County autumn in the Hector Exhibit Centre, in Pictou until Oct. 29.

Take a wagon ride and listen to old-time music while celebrating the end-of-season open house at the Balmoral Grist Mill Museum, Sunday, Oct. 8, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Hear some music and enjoy the refreshments at the Lawrence House Museum in Maitland on Sunday, Oct. 8 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Region 3: Cape Breton Island

Cape Breton Island in the fall exquisite is beyond compare.

• Site 31, Mabou Salt Marsh: There is very little green left on the marsh itself. Marsh grass is a rusty-orange and the cattail is mostly brown. Hardwood surrounding the marsh is still green and is flecked with spots of red.

• Site 32, Margaree Valley: White birch is just starting to turn a pale yellow and the red maple is starting to blush.

• Site 33, Cap Le-Moine: Rose hips are a terrific scarlet, and the birch is continuing to yellow while about one-fifth of the mountain-ash and hawthorn is laden with vermilion berries. Tall grass is bronzing and the salt marshes are luminous in tones of gold. Purple lavender, silver-rod and butter-and-eggs are thick along the shore. The countryside is dotted with red pin-cherry and the apple trees are displaying a harvest of luscious fruit.

• Site 34, French Mountain: Bracken and other fern is changing to orange and brown. Birch is slowly yellowing, and the evening primrose is still in bloom, while poison ivy is spreading a bright red carpet along the highway and among the yellow grasses of the shore. Cinnamon fern is deepening from shades of yellow to orange, and scarlet wood laurel hugs the Cabot Trail descending the mountain.

• Site 35, Pleasant Bay: At the base of the mountain almost half the birch has advanced to yellow and the hillsides have gone to magenta with blueberry. Sugar maple and ash are only beginning to reveal a sprinkle of crimson through the Grand Anse valley. Still in bloom are the fall dandelion, goldenrod and New York aster, while the knapweed pods have darkened. Huckleberry on the barrens have begun to go rusty coloured, and along the roadside there is an abundance of white pearly everlasting dotted with the purple blooms of willow-herb.

• Site 36, Cape North: A quarter of the site is an enchanting red, orange and yellow. The top of the ridge is streaked with colours spilling into the valley below, and there's a deep wine- red scattered throughout.

• Site 38, Kelly's Mountain: Exquisite reds and yellows are visible even though the colours are only just beginning to get under way. About half the view from St. Ann's Lookoff is appearing in patches of colour from yellow-green to emerald.

• Site 39, Long Island: Ten per cent of the hillsides of the panoramic view are spotted with beautiful shades of autumn colour.

• Site 40, Kennington Cove: The unique plants in the raised bogs along the storm-etched shore line are just beginning to turn.

• Site 41, North Side East Bay: Mostly along the ridges of the hardwood hills on the group of islands, almost a quarter of the fall colours have started in isolated pockets of crimson red maple and golden yellow birch.

• Site 42, Irish Cove Scenic Look-off and Provincial Park: Scattered patches of saffron yellow and earth tones spot the hillsides and reflect enchantingly from the harbour.

• Site 44, Dundee-West Bay: The islands and hillsides of West Bay are a patchwork of bright fall colour in the hardwood and grass mixed with the tones of the evergreen.

• Site 45, Marble Mountain: A quarter of the mountain view across the patchwork of islands framed by Lake Bras d'Or is covered in magnificent scarlet and orange red maple, and spotted with saffron beech and birch.

• Site 46, Salt Mountain: White birch is beginning to turn a pale yellow and red maple is beginning to redden.

The Celtic Colours International Festival is breaking out all over Cape Breton from Oct. 6 to 14. Enjoy the Island's most beautiful season to the sounds of fiddles, pipes and voices in song. Over 250 musicians, dancers, singers and storytellers will be at venues across the Island.

Partake in Mabou's Feis Mhabu this Thanksgiving Weekend with workshops in Gaelic and lessons in step-dancing and fiddling. There's a big turkey dinner at the Mabou Parish Bazaar and a concert on Saturday and Sunday.

Enjoy taking tea the 1700s way at the Cossit House Museum in Sydney every Sunday afternoon in October.

Glimpse living history celebrating the culture of the Gaelic- speaking Scots who settled in Nova Scotia at the Nova Scotia Highland Village in Iona, daily 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Oct. 15.

Region 4: Marine Drive and Halifax-Dartmouth

Autumn's astonishing change of colour is transforming the Marine Drive and the Halifax-Dartmouth areas into a glowing wonderland of visual delight.

• Site 47, Boylston Provincial Park: Scarlet and gold is beginning to show among the red maple, sugar maple, mountain-ash, pin- cherry and choke-cherry throughout the park and the opposite shore of Chedabucto Bay. Shrub and grass is starting to turn bronze and wild apple trees are sporting red and yellow fruit.

• Site 48, Lundy: Patches of grass and shrub on the Lundy Barrens are beginning to grow yellow, red and purple while small clumps of red maple, mountain-ash and pin-cherry are beginning to brighten orange, red and yellow. Blueberry and rhodora are awash in purple.

• Site 49, Stillwater: A quarter of the sugar maple, red maple and shrub are creating patches of scarlet and yellow, mostly in the higher hills. White birch, yellow birch, aspen, shrub, fern and grass is becoming tinged with auburn and chestnut.

• Site 50, Liscombe Mills: Across the spectacular water falls the roadside bush and grass is full of colour. Blueberry bush is changing to crimson red, a quarter of the maple is scarlet and gold, white and yellow birch are displaying yellow and ferns rust.

• Site 54, Clam Harbour Provincial Park: There is a general yellowing of the land, pasture and forest. Rose hips are bright red and plump, bracken and other fern a vivid sienna, and cranberry is ripening. Goldenrod and purple aster is still in bloom, and the rowan is orange-red. Witherod berries are pink and purple, and alder, fern and cattail is russet-brown.

• Site 56, Elderbank: Acres of cattle-corn are yellow-brown and surrounded with patches of red maple. Close to half the trees, grass and shrub have taken on the serene tones of autumn.

Martinique Beach Provincial Park: Almost half the site is sporting fall colours with scarlet maple and pin-cherry, orange wild raisin, yellow white birch and hazel-brown grass and alder.

• Site 59, Mount Uniacke: Most of the trees that will change color are now changing, with some in full fall glory. Maple and some hardwood shrub are red and orange, aspen and ash are yellow, and oak is amber-brown.

• Site 60, Halifax: The frosts of the last week at Frog Pond have encouraged patches of colour to appear around the pond. Small areas of wetland are close to full colour where elsewhere individual trees and branches have turned maroon or crimson. Patches of fern and understory plant at the water's edge are coppery yellow, and blue aster is pretty along the road edge.

See local artists display their work, and get free art lessons, at various locations at the Scotia East Art Rally in Musquodoboit Harbour on Saturday, Oct. 7.

Rally in the Valley on Sunday, Oct. 8 in Middle Musquodoboit with a car rally, car show, entertainment and displays of antique tractors and equipment. See also the King of the Garden Contest with the Great Pumpkin Weigh-in.

Give thanks and praise in the early 1900's style on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 10, at the Thanksgiving Hymn Sing in Jeddore

Come to Eastern Passage's Harvest Weekend with merchants in period costume, demonstrations of pioneer crafts and activities, and samples of traditional maritime foods from Oct. 7 to 9.

See what a well-dressed lady wore to tea in 1828 and learn about clothing in the 1800s with a Revealing Talk about Dress in the 1800s at Uniacke Estate Museum Park, Saturdays, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. until Oct. 14.

There is lots happening at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax. Family Campfire Night with stories and songs Thursday, Oct. 5, from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Make animals from different kinds of leaves at the Animal Leaf Workshop on Monday, Oct. 9, from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Hear a talk about Scottish Island Life at the Time of the Highland Clearances on Wednesday, Oct.11 at 7:30 p.m. Also view beautiful photos featuring fall colours and autumn foliage by award-winning photographer Stephen Patterson through to Oct. 31.

Region 5: Lighthouse Route

Like a wild-fire in slow motion the Lighthouse Route is shimmering with natural majesty as it burns brightly in the rich splendor of autumn.

• Site 62, New Ross: About one-fifth the trees, mostly maple, are in colours of red and orange, and lovely against the dark green evergreens and lighter green hardwoods which have not yet changed.

East River: Every colour-changing tree has been affected by frost. Reds are running through the mountain-ash berries, maple across the small bay and in some low grass. Most of the birch and mountain-ash are displaying tones of gold.

Tantallon: Almost every tree that will change has some colour in it now. Most maple is outlined in red, birch and low grass is awash in yellow, and much of the fern and grass is russet-brown. Fir trees are heavy with brown cone.

• Site 64, First Peninsula: Patches of yellows, oranges and reds are draped through a quarter of the foliage, and resplendent against the major greens of the area.

• Site 68, Kejimkujik National Park: Up to 15 per cent of fall foliage has changed with some groves of red maple in full blazing splendor and lovely against the towering white pine. Some reds and oranges appear in the rest of the red maple, Virginia creeper and poison ivy, while aspen, blue-jointed grass, sedge and fern are going yellow. Cinnamon, sensitive and royal fern along the river's edge are showing sepia. There are some wonderful scarlet red maple on the Rogers Brook and Mersey River Trails.

• Site 66, Milton: Ten per cent of fall colours are evident and the views are spectacular with burgundy white ash, crimson maple, soft red Virginia creeper and wild rose along the riverbanks and edges of the roads. Red maple is dramatically displayed against white church steeples and the deep blue of the sky while cattail is a beautiful wheat colour.

• Site 73, Barrington: Superb colours are almost in their full glory. Reflecting joyfully off the bay is an even blend of red, orange, yellow, brown and evergreen from the mixture of pine, spruce, sugar maple, oak, aspen, fern, alder, marsh grass and berries.

Join costumed interpreters and celebrate Lunenburg's German heritage with spicy Lunenburg sausage, kohlslaw and hot cider from Friday, Oct. 6 to Sunday, Oct. 8 at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic in Lunenburg.

Bring the family to Ross Farm in New Ross for some good old family fun for Thanksgiving Day on Monday, Oct. 9. Enjoy demonstrations, entertainment and a fun auction.

See wool being spun into yarn and make your own sheep pictures from real wool, daily at the Perkins House Museum in Liverpool.