Autumn Leaf Watch, Weekly Report

TOURISM/CULTURE- Autumn Leaf Watch, Weekly Report

NOTE: The following is the seventh 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.

Leaves are loose and flying through the air everywhere in Nova Scotia, creating a crispy, crunchy carpet underfoot while a kaleidoscope of colour continues to shimmer in the trees and around the landscape.

October is Mi'kmaq Portrait Month. To learn more go to http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mikmaq .

REGION 1: Evangeline Trail

The Evangeline Trail is a dreamscape of colour amidst the splendid smells of autumn as the leaves begin to fall and dance through the sky.

• Site 1, Arcadia: The sights and smells of autumn in full swing are wondrous along the trail. Everything is drenched in colour with bright red mountain-ash and holly berries, yellow birch and aspen, flame-red and orange maple, rusty-gold grass and sienna fern.

• Site 2, Ellenwood Lake Provincial Park: The leaves of the top canopy have blown away while the understory is still full of bright, dazzling colour.

• Site 5, Digby: Fifty per cent of the leaves have been raked from the trees and are forming windrows along the trails. Lots of colour, predominately warm oranges and yellows, are showing all along the trails and shoreline. The birch and beech are very beautiful shades of gold accented with splashes of red and orange. Grass is completely rust and yellow.

Smith's Cove: The colour is spectacular. At the mouth of the river, the dominant colours are yellow and orange with some faded red. From the look-off, the sugar maple, trembling aspen, beech, white birch and mountain maple provide a mixture of beautiful and brilliant yellows and oranges. The wild rose is red, almost crimson, and the beech along the trail contribute to the dominant yellow. Red oak leaves are nice with a mixture of red, green, and brown. The white ash trees have all dropped their leaves.

Greenwich: At Deep Hollow Road the trees are saturated with colour and many leaves have dropped. The reds have more or less gone but the yellows, particularly from the aspen, are quite prominent.

• Site 10, Halls Harbour: Bare branches cap the steep cliffs of the Echo Trail though there are many bright spots of colour remaining. A great abundance of crunchy leaves underfoot make for a fine afternoon hike. Mountain-ash is red and robins are eating the berries. Woodpeckers abound and wild flowers are still in bloom.

Enjoy the trails open year round at the Uniacke Estate Museum Park.

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.

Drop in and see the Firefighter's Museum of Nova Scotia in Yarmouth.

REGION 2: Glooscap and Sunrise Trails

The Glooscap and Sunrise Trails are enveloped in a full palette of bright autumn colour, and leaves are beginning to stream from the trees.

• Site 13, Gore: The colours around Courthouse Hill are a feast for the eyes, especially the flame-reds of the sugar maple and the saffron-yellows of the aspen.

• Site 15, Burntcoat Head Park: The hills across the tides of the bay are a patchwork of orange colours among the evergreen. All the grass, except the green lawns, are hazel-brown and most of the apples and berries are on the ground along with many leaves. The colours are exquisite.

• Site 16, Shubenacadie: Fields around the church overlooking the Shubenacadie River are saturated with red, orange, yellow, brown and green. Red maple has peaked to a brilliant red, and sugar maple is resplendent in orange and yellow. Aspen is gold, ash is sprinkled with brown, and oak is still partly green. Half the leaves have blown off the trees.

Stewiacke Valley: Along the Stewiacke Valley it's mostly post peak conditions with all maple now bare of leaves, and the oak and birch still colourful. -Site 18, Five Islands: With the red of the sandstone and mudflats, and hardwood in full autumn splendor, the scene is a wondrous glowing grandeur. Only the white oak and apple trees remain green.

• Site 19, Kirkhill: Foliage is flaming at its peak and consists mainly of yellow, orange and red.

• Site 20, Cape Chignecto Peninsula: Cape d'Or has lost half its leaf cover and the landscape is red with mountain-ash and blueberries, while sugar maple is still showing orange, and white birch, yellow birch and aspen are yellow. Shrub, fern and grass are washed in fabulous shades of earth tones, and dappled with brown alder.

• Site 21, Amherst: A virtual sea of marsh grass is completely enveloped in tints and tones of gold and yellow.

• Site 22, Fenwick: The maple has been completely stripped of leaves, but the leaves on the white birch and aspen, all along the vista of the ridge, are a grandiose golden yellow.

• Site 23, Wentworth: From the highest point at Ski Wentworth the whole vista is rusty-brown, and more than half the leaves have blown off the trees. Birch and aspen are still bright yellow, and some orange and bronze remain in the other hardwood.

• Site 24, Wallace: The view from the bridge presents a resplendent tapestry of yellows, golds and browns sprinkled with green. Sugar maple, red maple, mountain-ash and staghorn sumac are red and orange. Large amounts of leaves are swirling through the air as hundreds of geese splash about in the harbour.

• Site 25, Balmoral Mills: Most of the leaves have fallen and there are still a few splashes of yellow in the trees around the mill pond.

Nuttby Mountain: A thickly scattered sea of leaves is spread over the hardwood hills. Yellow beech and aspen leaves speckle the white spruce forests.

• Site 27, Greenhill: Half the leaves are off the trees, exposing grey branches and tree trunks among the yellows of the maple, birch and aspen. Spots of red remain in the sugar maple and pin- cherry.

• Site 28, Marshy Hope: The steep-sided valley along Highway 104 is emblazoned in buff and straw yellow, and over half the leaves have dropped and begun to reveal the lay of the land below.

• Site 30, Pomquet: Half the hardwood leaves are spread about on the ground and the leaves remaining in the trees are brilliant yellow and gold freckled with spots of orange and the rare red splash in the maple. The ochre of aspen and birch dominate the landscape, and the oak is especially gorgeous, ranging from radiant red and yellow to bronzy-gold. Tamarack is starting to turn yellow.

Enjoy the Gay's River turkey supper, and tables of crafts and baked goods, on Saturday, Oct. 28.

See Joy Laking's Watercolour Gallery open house in Portapique, Oct. 28-29.

See the paintings of three local artists at the Fundy Geological Museum in Parrsboro, until Dec. 30.

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

Remember those who fought for us at the Remembrance Exhibit at the Hector Exhibit Centre in Pictou, until Thursday, Nov.30.

REGION 3: Cape Breton Island

All over Cape Breton Island wind-driven leaves paint the land in a pointillist artwork of flying colour.

• Site 36, Cape North: Leaves are starting to drop along the Aspy fault-line framing North Pond and Aspy Bay. Colours in the hardwood are gold, yellow and brown with grey silhouettes. The view is best seen from the trails.

• Site 38, Kelly's Mountain: The view from Kelly's Mountain and St. Ann's Look-off indicates leaves at post peak with a 50 per cent leaf drop. The higher areas are stripped of leaves, but along Smokey it's still a nice drive with lots of reds and oranges.

• Site 39, Long Island: The view of St. Andrew's Channel and the hardwood-clad island of Boularderie is extravagantly illuminated with the full array of autumn colours and leaves just starting to fall.

• Site 40, Kennington Cove: The bog and blueberry along the storm-etched shoreline display a remarkable range of russet and hazel.

• Site 41, North Side East Bay: All along East Bay and Castle Bay up to Benacadie Pond the hills are steeped in colour and the leaves are starting to fly.

• Site 42, Irish Cove Scenic Look-off and Provincial Park: The look-off onto East Bay and Big Bras d'Or Lake is a kaleidoscope of autumn hues. Sugar maple, red maple and pin-cherry are crimson and orange. Striped maple, white birch and yellow birch are fiery- orange and golden-yellow, and the alder, fern and grass are burnt-brown and amber. Leaves are beginning to let go.

• Site 43, Martinique: The site is post peak showing some red, orange, burgundy, yellow and brown, and most of the leaves have dropped.

• Site 44, Dundee-West Bay: The walk up the hillside is covered in a fine carpet of colourful leaves, and the trees and landscape are still holding with reds, oranges, yellows and browns.

• Site 45, Marble Mountain: The site is just past peak colour and a good 15 per cent of the leaves have fallen. Most of the leaf loss is in the upper part of the slope and there is still lots of colour, though a faded look is developing.

Enjoy taking tea the 1700s way at the Cossit House Museum in Sydney every Sunday afternoon in October. There are quilting demonstrations daily.

Glimpse living history celebrating the culture of the Gaelic- speaking Scots who settled in Nova Scotia at the Nova Scotia Highland Village in Iona, Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

REGION 4: Marine Drive and Halifax-Dartmouth

Windrows of leaves line paths and roadsides on the Marine Drive and in the Halifax-Dartmouth area with rich aromatic piles of crunchiness, while the air is almost iridescent with colour.

• Site 47, Boylston Provincial Park: Most of the leaves have been stripped from the trees but bright colours continue to resound and reflect off the water, especially in the aspen and maple.

• Site 48, Lundy: The majority of leaves have been raked from the trees. Larch needles have changed to yellow and are starting to drop. There are patches of red and purple through the barrens among the grey granite boulders.

• Site 54, Clam Harbour Provincial Park: A third of the tamarack is fawn-yellow while all the marsh grass is sizzling gold and orange against the cold blues of water and sky. The few maple dotting the scene are reddish-orange and the blackberry is a deep wine red.

• Site 56, Elderbank: The hardwood is a complete kaleidoscope of fantastic colour, and a quarter of the leaves have fallen.

• Site 60, Halifax: Leaves are dropping in great numbers at Frog Pond and when it's calm you can hear them falling. Young oak is just starting to turn among a bronzy carpet of freshly fallen pine needles and leaves. There's a colour of apricot and peach in the woods.

Come to the Atlantic Christmas Fair in Halifax with over 400 exhibits of crafts, art, antiques and food from Oct. 26 to 29.

Dress up in Halloween costumes and enjoy a family skate at the Bedford Arena with treats, music and scary rooms on Saturday, Oct.28.

Celebrate Bluenose Ghost night in Eastern Passage with a colouring contest, pumpkin decorating, apple bobbing, story telling and a costume parade on Monday, Oct. 30.

There's lots to do at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax. Join the ever-popular Jacques Babineau and The Reptile Show, or get in the mood for Halloween with some creepy crawly critters from the Bug Zoo, Oct. 27-29. View wonderful photographs featuring fall colours and autumn foliage by award-winning photographer Stephen Patterson through to Tuesday, Oct.31. Learn all about October's tree of the month, the birch, its importance and some of its traditions and uses.

Join over 400 craftspeople, artists, antique dealers and food exhibitors for Christmas at the Forum Crafts Festival in Halifax from Nov. 2 to 5.

REGION 5: Lighthouse Route

Leaves fill the sky with dappled colours and begin to accumulate along the Lighthouse Route while gorgeous hues saturate the landscape.

• Site 62, New Ross: The leaves are one-third off the trees and bare branches are beginning to show. The leaves still on the trees are bright yellow and there is still lots of colour around with shades of yellow and gold, and dark orange and brown.

See the brilliant colour of autumn leaves in New Ross at Ross Farm. The historic family farm illustrates pioneer life in the late 1800s. Ross Farm is open until Tuesday, Oct. 31.

East River: Almost all the trees have changed colour and some have lost their leaves. The ground is strewn with multi-coloured leaves.

Tantallon: Most of the trees have now reached peak colour and some of the first to change have lost their leaves. A few oak remain green and the tamarack is just beginning to show a yellow hue. Bright colours make the spruce appear even darker green than usual.

• Site 64, First Peninsula: Fifty per cent of leaves have dropped in the Lunenburg area and an electrifying array of colour surrounds the harbour.

• Site 68, Kejimkujik National Park: Fifty per cent of the leaves have dropped, however the hills are still brilliant with yellows and rich browns. Most of the river vegetation is yellow and there are a few dark reds from the oak. The forest floor is a great mosaic of colour from the fallen leaves and yellow pine needles. The smells are rich and intriguing.

• Site 69, Milton: From the bridge over the Mersey River the view of the wheat-coloured grasses against the blue sky is truly amazing. It's a painter's paradise of red, yellow and orange sugar maple. The trees were planted by students 16 years ago.

Mug up and listen to some old sea yarns at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic on Oct. 29 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Focus on history with Remembering Black Loyalists, Black Communities at the Shelburne County Museum. This is an exhibit introducing the story of the black loyalists who came to Nova Scotia between 1783 and 1785. The exhibit is on display until Dec. 20.

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

Drop by the Wile Carding Mill Museum in Bridgewater and see a very special quilt crafted by seven local quilters.