[NatureNS] Gaspereau River path; little fish

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Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:10:55 -0400
From: Rick Whitman <dendroica.caerulescens@gmail.com>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
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Hi Nancy,

The trail is the remains of a "river road" that was built in the first
decade of the last century i.e. 1907 +/-. It was an early stage of a
pulp mill that was never built. The project likely failed in the
financial crash of '07. See "My White Rock" by Bert Young for more
details. In the past 3 decades the trail has been maintained by a
number of individuals generally working independently. The trail is
not 11 km long. It only takes one hour of brisk walking to hike to the
end on that side so it's 3-4 km. At that point you have to ford the
river to continue, wisely done only in summer. There is a quasi-trail
somewhat further on the other side but it's unused & barely visible.
It only goes another 1-2 km.

I know 3 individuals who have walked the entire Gaspereau River from
Rte 12 to White Rock.

This is a healthy river. There are fish of all ages in it 12 months of
the year. There are trout, salmon (placed by NSDNR staff from hatchery
fish), lake chub, gaspereau, and sticklebacks and perhaps others.
Trout & sticklebacks are easily seen. Trout of that size are quite
young while sticklebacks would be adults.

Cheers,
Rick Whitman

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 8:36 AM, Nancy Roberts
<nancy.roberts@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Hello,,
>
> Yesterday we walked a trail along the Gaspereau. It starts at a bridge I
> believe near White Rock and runs upstream. I'm told it goes about 11 km and
> then stops. I've never met anyone who has been to the end.
>
> One question: who made this lovely trail and who maintains it? One brief
> place on a steep slope has a drystone wall supporting the low side, so it
> was a fair amount of trouble at some point.
>
> Second question: I left the trail to peer into a shallow side channel,
> nearly a stillwater, very clear. It had a clean stone bottom, so there must
> be more current when the water is a bit higher. It also appeared to have
> more sun than average, since it was completely ice-free, while the river was
> about 80% covered. I was surprised to see a small school of fish, 1" – 1
> 1/4" long. "Just plain fish," the colour of the bottom, visible more easily
> by their black shadows on the bottom than by their corpuses. Would they have
> hatched this year? overwintered?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Nancy
>
> Nancy Roberts Design
> Celebrating 19 years of making you look GOOD
>
> Dartmouth, NS B2Y 2X6
> 902 461-9488
>
>
>



-- 
Rick Whitman

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