WALK CAPE BRETON

Thanksgiving Weekend in Dartmouth/Halifax-Friday 10 Oct. to Mon 13 Oct 2003

The 20th Anniverary for The Dartmouth Volksmarch Club was a great success.
The Cape Breton Island Hoppers received a plaque for the largest group who attended the Event. There was 21 of us who had registered and all attended the banquet on Saturday evening.

On Friday night The DVC scrambled to hold an evening Harvest Moon Walk, starting from Cole Harbour Place; the original start point at Salt lake Marsh had to be changed due to the trail being almost wiped out from Hurricane Juan.

We walked through parts of Colby Village where we were able to see some of the damage caused by the storm, but for the most part this proved to be a great walk and we were able to talk to some of the locals who seemed a little amazed and surprised to find a hundred or more of us tracking through their neighbourhood.

A bus tour led by Lea & Lorraine Dummer, Walking Tours International, from Seattle WA, joined us for this Event, doing a 5Km walk only as they had to fly out early Saturday AM.
Lea & Lorraine informed us that the group they led in August voted our walk at Usige Ban Falls in Baddeck as the number one walk of the tour of Eastern Canada.

Thanks to the DVC's commitment to safety, all of us had a wonderful and safe walk.
A note of caution on a Guided Night Walk "make sure the Walk Leader or someone in the group know what bathroom you are going to"!!! and thats another story....

The CBIH has had only one evening walk in its history, a Christmas Light Walk, that was found to be interesting but cold and slippery; therefore we have not repeated the experiment. The Walk Committee is open to suggestions.

Saturdays walk at Mt. Uniacke was a Volksmarch/Map walk, but most of the island hoppers opted to walk together, though there was some friendly discussions about the directions on the map, but we all made it in the end, though I'm still looking for the check point.
A tour of the home at Mt Uniacke proved to be a highlight for those of us who enjoy old historical homes.

On Sunday the guided walk around the lakes in Sackville became overwhelming to the hoppers when we encountered snow at the back of an arena, we just had to stop and have pictures taken and throw snowballs, we had Fun, our host and their guests scratched their heads and continued walking thou some volunteered to take group pictures for us.

Sunday night our club members came together for dinner and the party carried over to a card game at the motel.

A Rainy Monday morning found all of us at Smitty's for breakfast; some of us headed back to Cape Breton while 11 out of our 21 completed the event at East Gore and then a second event at the Mastadoon Ridge near Enfield with the Central Nova Club from Truro.

The Dartmouth Volksmarch Club will be in Fundy National Park in 2004 and some of our members are making plans for this event as well.

As president of the CBIH I extended an invitation to the DVC and their President Gerry Simpson to come to Cape Breton in 2005. Gerry and his committee readily accepted this invitation and our respective walk committees will begin the process of selecting trails and entertainment.