Hiking with Dogs at Cape Split
by Dr. Markus Stasiulis*

Charmaine Gaudet with Halle and Cary Vollick with Fairhillfarm’s Henry tiptoeing through the Dutchmans’s breeches at Cape Split. (Dr. Markus Stasiulis)

Walking with your dogs on Cape Split Trail is not unlike one of John Denver’s songs. It’s “a walk in the forest” and it “fills up your senses.” Our most acute sense is vision and in the case of dogs it is smell. It is our collective experiences that make this 4 to 5 hour, 16 km (10 mile), roundtrip hike one of the most spectacular experiences in Nova Scotia. It is a walk that will take you to one of Nova Scotia’s most famous rock formations along a peninsula jutting into the Bay of Fundy dividing Scots Bay from the Minas Basin.

You can relax as the dogs are permitted off leash and fortunately they have access to ample fresh water along the trail.

It is a pleasure that we can enjoy similar and complimenting experiences with our dogs after a long hard winter. As far as I am concerned the prime time to do this hike is around the second week in May.

Dogs like nine-year-old standard poodle, Henry and seven-year-old golden doodle, Halle are in good shape as they get good long walks in their home of Halifax. To see Henry and Halle darting over and lapping up running water, staring down the squirrels and watching them taking note of a hooting barred owl, gives me great comfort to stop and smell the roses. Dogs make great companions on a nature walk.

In May, as we traverse the trail, about half way along starts one of the most magnificent views I have ever seen. The tree leaves have yet to open up and the forest is carpeted with predominantly three species of wild flower: spring beauties that carpet the forest floor sometimes like snow, purple trilliums in extraordinary large clumps, and Dutchman’s breeches, a close relative of the bleeding hearts. I wonder what John Denver would have sung at this sight?

When the upper canopy darkens the forest floor these beauties quickly go dormant until the following year. The best time to visit here with your dog is around the second week in May. The rest of the year the hike is still good. The last part of the trail opens into a meadow providing excellent long distance views in good weather. The basalt cliffs laden with precious and semiprecious stones provide nesting sites for gulls and other birds. I wonder what it would feel like in dog’s paws with all this sensory stimulation.

Cape Split on Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy

As I look across the Bay of Fundy observing the action of the world’s most magnificent tides, I realize that if I could see as well as Henry and Halle can smell, I could see well past Vancouver Island.

About the Author
Dr. Markus Stasiulis has been practicing veterinary medicine in Halifax Regional Municipality for 30 years. When he is not tending to the wellbeing of animals, he can be found decorating and landscaping his eclectic clinic, Vetwise Animal Hospital.

*Excerpted from the Halifax Chronicle Herald, click here to see the original article.

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