Hiking trail bridge damaged
Group restoring hiking trail reeling from theft, vandalism
A group working to restore a hiking trail between Gabarus and Gull Cove is reeling from the theft and vandalism of a pontoon bridge it purchased for the project.
Last year, as the community of Gabarus prepared to celebrate its 300th anniversary, the community wanted to have a legacy project and decided upon improving the condition of the Gull Cove Road, says Tim Menk, a member of the board of the Gull Cove Trail Society. It is a former public road that connects Gabarus and the abandoned village of Gull Cove and has been featured in “The Hiking Trails of Nova Scotia.”
“It’s deteriorated over the years to the point where in years past there were trucks and ATVs and various vehicles that had driven along between the two villages and the track had become quite muddy and as a result you would have to wear pretty good sized boots in order to walk through without getting your feet wet,” Menk said.
The society formed last year to raise funds and take on the project, with plans to clear the path where trees had grown in and to ditch and drain the wet areas.
Gull Cove was an active community up until about the 1940s. Menk said while no buildings still standing there, you can see the remains of stone wells, foundations and stone walls.
“It’s considered one of the best hiking trails in Nova Scotia,” Menk said. “It’s a hike through the woods and over rocky beaches that’s about five kilometres one way … When you get out to Gull Cove, the trail opens up and it becomes sort of a meadow. When you ascend the Big Cape, when you climb out of the Gull Cove area onto the cape, you’ve got one of the most magnificent views of anywhere on this part of the island.”
They had some work done on the first section of the trail and it was determined that they would put in a bridge crossing.
“I had come up with the idea originally of putting a pontoon or a floating bridge, which would be easier than trying to drive pilings into the ground in order to hold it,” Menk said.
With the assistance of some grant money, a 12-foot by eight-foot pontoon section with four pontoons attached to it was purchased. It was brought to the edge of the brook last fall but weather prevented the work from proceeding at that time and the intention was to move ahead with installation in the spring.
Menk said when he returned to the area to hike recently he discovered the pontoons were missing, a financial loss he estimated at about $850. The thieves also stole all of the hardware from the deck of the bridge itself, including the corner crackets that reinforce it, leaving only the wooden deck.
“Somebody went out there with intend because they would have had to go out with tools,” he said. “Anyone taking the amount of time they would have had to remove those pontoons and to hike them back out from considerable distance from the end of the road would have had to have more than one person to do it.”
The theft has been reported to the RCMP. If anyone has any knowledge about who removed the pontoons, they are asked to contact the RCMP. Menk suspects the theft likely occurred at night or someone in Gabarus would have noticed them transporting the pontoons out of the community.
“It was an expensive thing for us to buy,” he said. “Because it was on provincial property, whoever stole it probably thought … it’s a victimless crime, they wouldn’t think it was a community organization that bought and paid for it, they’d think it was the province.”
The society is planning to contact the supplier to see if it can access replacement pontoons. They still intend to have the entire trail passable by the fall, “to make it more of a pleasant walk than an arduous hike,” Menk said.