Thomas Raddall Provincial Park

I spent three days at this provincial park. Named after the benefactor who made it possible the park is remote from everything but Joli Bay. It was the Bay that provided transportation to the United Empire Loyalists who first inhabited this area. In a move that is unique for provincial parks the home the MacDonald Family lived in is still preserved though it is hard to believe that up to fifteen people lived in it at one time.

The park has an extensive network of well-maintained dirt roads and utility trails. Given the distances involved in getting anywhere including the beach using a bicycle makes sense. For a wilderness type park there are some startling modern conveniences. Water taps are strategically located throughout the park and a 'comfort station' to which my camp site has its own private shortcut boasts shower stalls, flush toilets, hot air dryers, hot and cold water and even urinals on the men's side. Outside it are two Pepsi Machines.

The campsites are sufficiently spaced to afford privacy and many are large enough to look like playing fields. Whoever built them obviously camped as all are level and provide space to park a vehicle, place for a tent and a separate area for the picnic table. Don't believe I'd want to be in Site 10 with the swamp behind it though. The newest loop is in an area that was logged and has yet to fully regenerate. Lacking mature trees it would seem to me it could get quite hot when the sun lays in and in damp weather could get quite buggy due to the swampy nature of the terrain.

There are extensive beach areas surrounded by rocky outcroppings but at low tide eel grass makes it inadvisable to attempt swimming. Everywhere one is reminded that the last ice age started retreating here and left behind the evidence of its passing in the form of giant erratic boulders which sit at odd angles where the retreating ice dropped them. One glance at the gravely soil makes it plain why the loyalists who settled in the southern section of Nova Scotia found it impossible to make a go of it farming. It is testimony to the dampness of this past season that mushrooms abound everywhere and first year fir trees are growing like weeds in every open space.

Although this park has the government mandated wheel-chair accessible facilities I wouldn't say that this is a park that was meant for those so handicapped. The very spacious nature of the park means that getting anywhere involves a major trek. The park's hiking trails could do with some more extensive marking and the much photocopied map fails to integrate the trails into the campground layout. A park naturalist could spend a summer preparing detailed interpretive descriptions of the many features viewable along these trails and serve to make the hike much more enjoyable. In particular aides to the identification of the spring ephemerals in the wooded areas and animal and bird tracks at the shore would be helpful. More work could be done to aide in the identification of birds and a viewing scope at the camper's beach would aide those wishing to have a closer look at the harbour seals that are permanent and in the fall mating season noisy neighbours.