Travel date: June 28, 2018
People mostly think of the coasts when they think of visiting Nova Scotia: the Bay of Fundy to the north, the port city of Halifax to the south, the winding, scenic drive along the shore on Cape Breton. And truth be told, we spend most of our three Nova Scotia weeks clinging to the perimeter as well….but anytime we did venture inland we were glad we did and wished we had more time to spend there.
We visited Kejimkujik National Park (Keji, for short) as a day trip from Annapolis Royal, but if I had it to do over again I’d try to devote at least a night or two to staying at a campground there.
Keji actually has two separate areas: the smaller is the seaside section on the Atlantic coast, with beaches and bogs and coastal wildlife. We visited the larger inland area, made up of lakes and the Mersey River. It’s also Nova Scotia’s only Dark Sky Preserve (another reason we wish we’d been there for at least one night) and a National Historic Site focusing on Mi’kmaw culture.
Most facilities at Keji are open May through October, with limited services except during July and August (a problem we ran into all over the place during the June portion of our trip). Admission is $4.90CDN for seniors, $5.80 for adults, and $11.75 for a family (kids up to 17 are free, at least in 2019).
Water’s a big part of the Keji experience, so we knew we wanted to do some canoeing or kayaking while we were there. What I really wanted to do was one of the guided trips in a big ol’ canoe with a bunch of people (I don’t like being responsible for navigation or steering all by myself in boats. I am not a confident paddler)….but they didn’t start up until July. Dave would have been happy just renting kayaks and going off on our own, but I would not have been. So we ended up doing a 2 hour guided tour with Whynot Adventure–an outside company that operates out of the park.
After a bit of logistics confusion, we ended up in two canoes: Dave, Milo, and Gus in one and Abe, Ari, and I in the other. This turned out to be a bit of a misstep, because Gus was stuck sitting on the floor of one canoe with nothing much to do. Abe was, too, but he didn’t really care because he was five. Gus was insulted. But figuring things out with two adults and four kids, none of whom are particularly experienced canoers is tricky.
You can canoe or kayak either on lakes or the river in Keji, but we were on the Mersey River. It was very easy paddling for the most part (although it took Ari and I awhile to get the hang of it and I felt bad for the one other couple that was stuck with our family and had to wait for our slow-ass selves), and the river is very shallow (too shallow in places; we nearly got stuck a couple of times). I was glad we weren’t on our own, though–there are a number of little branch offs that we wouldn’t have thought to explore on our own. Our guide was very laid back and kept up a commentary the whole way about what we were seeing (like turtles! And I can’t remember what else, animal wise).
I think Keji definitely needs to be explored from the water, but we also had a little time for some land bound activities.
I’ve mentioned before that, in our experience, visitors centers are less elaborate affairs in Canadian national parks than in American ones. But we did a little time checking out the exhibits in the small visitors center and watching a short film there:
Incidentally, one charming thing about Canadian national parks is that everything’s bilingual and, of course, everyone’s very friendly, so we got used to being greeted with “Hello–Bonjour!” everywhere.
Adjacent to the visitors center is the Mill Falls trail (2km out and back)–an easy and popular hike along a lovely stream to a waterfall:
Abe was working on another Xplorers badge here, to add to that rapidly growing collection he was wearing.
We also spend a little time at the Mi’kmaw encampment site….largely because we wanted to see Kejimkujik Lake and finish up Abe’s Xplorers book. But it turns out it’s also a good place to put on an impromptu play:
And that was it for our visit; it was time to drive back to Annapolis Royal and feed the lonely dogs.
maybe you would like to pin this?
I can’t think of anything to say about this one except Thanks. It looks delightfully peaceful.
It was! Except for the parts where Gus was complaining loudly about his lack of a seat/paddle in the canoe 😉