Shubie Trail Head

The Mission

With our recent move to Dartmouth happening amongst the strict lockdown measures to prevent covid-19 we had been unable to explore our new community freely. With parks and beaches now opening up, this adventure marked our first venture into nature since the pandemic panic arose. We decided to walk some of the Shubie Canal Greenway.

Getting There

We started at the Shubie Trail head just off of Waverly Road, Dartmouth. There isn’t much of an entrance, but plenty of room to park on the road. This trail head starts with a lovely wooden bridge leading over the Shubenacadie Canal. It had that freshly built look about it, which boosts the prestige of any hiking spot.

A Fork in the Road

Just over the walking bridge you find yourself underneath the highway 107 the sound of cars whizzing by above you. Standing in the shaded underpass with the canal running beside me, it was hard to shake thoughts of the old folk tails involving trolls that lived under bridges demanding money as you tried to cross. Troll bridges…. is that were the idea of Toll bridges came from? I guess thats the Macdonald and MacKay bridges now. There must be some really plump trolls living under those, but it was not hard to imagine a Troll taking refugee here when night befell.

There were a few families there, venturing out into nature once again. Their children were ecstatic to be out. They clambered up the somewhat steep incline of the highways underside squealing with fright and excitement when they realized how much easier it was to scale the incline then it would be to shimmy back down it, silly kids.

There are two directions you can go from the shubie trailhead, north or south. The Northern trail is part of the shubie canal greenway corridor and the south hooks into the trans canada trail needless to say that one would have been a very long hike or as long as you really want it to be. I like to feel accomplishment by reaching the end of the trail so we picked the route we were most likely to reach the end on, North. This trail ended up taking only about 50 minutes a total of 3.3 KM.

Shubie Canal Greenway Corridor

what a fancy name for a hiking trail. It was a short trail but there was some cool sights to be seen. The trail goes over a little walking bridge to what used to be an incline plane where boats would be pulled up and over to avoid the rapids on the canal. The weather was spectacular and the sun glistened off of the water in an a calming way. It really was a gorgeous site and watching the tiny rapids was delightful. The end of the trail just leads up to the highway so we turned around and headed back. We passed joggers and cyclists alike. The weather was so warm by the time we got back to the car I was glad our short walk was over. Boy, months in quarantine had made me soft… It is going to take a lot more outings until I’m back in shape again…