Whitman Wharf House Bed and Breakfast, Canso, Nova Scotia

Going Green, Going Birding- Ecotourism on the Canso Peninsula

One of the key tenets of “Going Green” on vacation is to try and minimize the impact of the emissions resulting from the plane and car journey. There are a number of different ways to tackle this issue, ranging from taking direct flights rather than flights with two or more touch downs, since the highest carbon emissions are during take off and landing, to thinking about the way we travel by car on vacation.

I noticed for the first time last year how a number of my guests arrived driving hybrid hire cars; though there were a few amusing stories about getting used to the hybrid cars on Halifax airport parking lot, all agreed that the fuel economy of the cars was a huge benefit to the holiday budget at a time of rising oil prices. More of my guests were also arriving as a foursome to share the transportation costs and of course, this has the effect of halving the gasoline emissions impact per head.

For many naturalists though, going green is a way of life, a way of being connected to the flora and fauna that is intimately linked to conservation and protection of life on planet Earth. Earth Day is everyday! We, as individuals, are either improving our planet on a daily basis or we are leaving it in a state worse than it was when we woke up in the morning. On a collective basis, every little individual decision we make during the day is magnified exponentially by the number of people doing the same thing. Whether this is to the betterment or to the detriment of global emissions depends on our decision making.

With global climate change so much part of the current news media landscape, I decided to look at what the tourism industry in Canada is doing to go greener. Talk of going greener may appear to some to be inconvenient timing, given how tourism has been adversely hit by a number of different factors in the past five years, from the impact of 9/11 on American travel, to the higher costs of travel due to inflated oil prices. But, if you have seen Al Gore’s presentation on global climate change in “An Inconvenient Truth,” or have noticed how David Suzuki, one of Canada’s leading environmentalists, is criss -crossing the world to speak out on global climate change, you will know that time is precious in the fight to turn back the clock to the 1970’s levels of carbon emissions. We have the reality to contend with that we must not only stop increasing the emissions levels from today as compared to yesterday but we must actually reduce our emissions to the levels of more than a generation ago. 

My own impression is that in general the tourism industry as a whole has not yet come to grips with the need to go greener with respect to countering global climate change. The efforts to provide environmentally friendly rooms or to promote environmental best practices in the industry, such as asking guests to be willing to forego the daily change of bed linens and towels in favour of two or three days between changes, thereby reducing energy usage in laundry, all appear to have lost momentum during the late eighties and nineties and we are again looking at the re-implementation of these same ideas, though perhaps on a broader basis.

So, I ask myself, how do you promote a greener vacation life style? The concept of Eco-tourism, I think, needs to be radically redefined from the notion of staying at an eco-lodge in the Amazon to a more comprehensive look at how tourism generally provides for the sustainability of an environment and a community. In the case of the Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore there are small coastal communities that have retained their unique character over several generations. One of the most surprising things that I have noticed since I moved to Nova Scotia is the intimate connection of the people living in these coastal communities to the land, to the sea and to their natural environment. There is a subtle understanding of the weather conditions and to the changes of seasons. The local environmental knowledge in these communities is astonishing to me and I respond in much the same way as my guests do when we are out together, with a quiet sense of awe and amazement, particularly as I listen to the commentary of a local guide and observe the natural wonders unfold on our outings together. I quickly realized that both for my guests as well as for me, the ability to leave one’s car behind and to set out on foot or even, on occasion, by boat, was an experience that was always memorable.

All this leads me to think that another way to think about how to take greener vacations is to consider what kind of footprint we leave when we are away. There are a myriad of different kinds of vacation activities we can engage in which are connected to our natural surroundings and which can be defined as ecotourism. The key in trying to take a greener vacation is to think more in terms of how it’s done rather than merely what activity is selected. Taking the opportunity to park one’s car and walk local trails is for many a fundamental part of a holiday in Nova Scotia. Bird watching is something which fits hand in glove with walking trails or meandering along the shoreline, but it can also be a delight to observe the many different species of birds which gather at back yard feeders, both for the beginner and the ardent birder.

The Canso peninsula is particularly interesting as a birding hotspot; the region is relatively remote and undeveloped, the terrain rugged and affords both coastal and woodland trails, as well as salt water marsh areas. The landscape between New Harbour and Cape Canso is strewn with white boulders. These strange outcroppings of rock known as the “Canso Barrens,” provide a breeding ground for gulls, cormorants, herons, terns and the Common Eider. In summer, the vegetation of wild blueberries also provides a feeding ground for birds. Then too, there is the aggregation of gulls which follow the fishing vessels. Though the fishing industry has fared less well in latter years you have only to see the gulls pecking for worms in the lawns to assuage their hunger at the end of the fishing season, when the boats are no longer going out everyday, to realize how much of their food is gleaned from the fishing vessels.

My own experiences of bird watching in Canso have given me a great deal of delight. On one particular early morning walk along the Chapel Gully trail in Canso, the low tide had provided a delectable breakfast for the shorebirds on the soft muddy flats. Suddenly startled, the entire bird population lifted into the air and swirled above our heads in a massive circular cloud. Reminiscent of a snow globe from my childhood, the birds continued to circle and as if through some centrifugal separation the various species separated out into their different groups and continued to circle and screech as discrete entities. I have spent summer afternoons on the beech at Little Dover too, mesmerized by the antics of the arctic tern. Never tiring of the accuracy of their dive I would try and predict at what moment it would happen and watch for the moment of impact as the bird hit the water at full speed, the spray from the impact confirming its location before it swept upward again in a continuum of motion that defies explanation.

In the fall of 2005 the townspeople of Canso were afforded the unusual spectacle of migratory gannets in the Canso harbour. Against a darkened backdrop of a November grey sky, the flock was illuminated by the sun and appeared to be pouring downwards in a great mass. The impact of so many hitting the water all at once made the ocean seem as though it were on the boil like a huge pan of water on the stove. As the birds emerged from their dive they realigned to recycle in their formation, priority seemingly given to those on the dive; the upward movement of the birds, following their dive, was confined to the outer margin of the flock and gave rise to a gradual sweeping of the harbour from one side to the other and then the reverse. The birds must have feasted on the herring for some four hours.

Last September the sightings of Bald Eagles seemed more numerous to me than in previous years. On one particular day I had over a dozen sightings. I was delighted by two particular encounters. The first, occurred along Hwy 16, as I observed a large eagle carrying a handsome fish, a salmon I thought, from the estuary of the Salmon River. The bird, despite being mobbed by a group of angry black crows, kept a solid purchase on its prey and managing to momentarily deflect the crowd of crows reached the cover of a leafless tree high on the escarpment. He perched on the branch surveying the route from whence he had just come satisfied that he was now alone and proceeded to eat. The second encounter similarly occurred along Hwy 16, but as a sighting from my car. My windows open, my small Chihuahuas were the object of investigation by a handsome eagle which circled above our heads as we pulled over to watch the magnificent bird of prey. It was my closest and most thrilling encounter to see the detail of the bird and watch as he swept passed, talons readied to gather up his prey!

The previous year, during an outing by boat to the Canso Islands, I had experienced another unusual encounter with a Bald Eagle. We had passed the strange Island with the lifeless trees, which toppled and stunted by the wind still afford a colony of cormorants a nesting site. In July, the fledglings stand in the nests in a comical stance, too large for the nests, yet not yet ready to leave; the fledgling birds seem to stand vertical to make room for the parent in the nest. Without warning we were surprised by what followed on nearing another Island; the feeding gulls were disturbed by our approach or at least that is what we thought at the time. In fact, on the far side of the Island, out of our view, a juvenile Bald eagle had taken flight on our approach. Still low off the ground, the gulls had descended on the bird of prey as it laboured to gain height, flapping its oversized wings in ungainly fashion. The taunting by the gulls continued for some two hundred metres; on the ground, the raptor lost all advantage, it was only when it reached height enough to dive and surprise its prey that the gulls regained their respect and ceased their chase.

One of my favourite sightings is of the small Sanderling along the shoreline. These delicate shore birds are often hidden by the strands of kelp on the beech until you are almost upon them at which moment they scatter upon the intrusion. These little sandpipers, often seen in small groupings, scamper along the shoreline following  the wash of water as it rushes up and then recedes on the beech, searching for food particles.

The number of bird species on the Canso peninsula, astonishing as it sounds, is a remarkable 210!  This includes sightings of rare vagrant species which have been blown off course by storms, particularly in the spring and fall. So whether you are an experienced birder or a beginner you are sure to add new species to your “lifers” list! Word spreads quickly in Canso town as a new vagrant is spotted; a Glossy Ibis standing in a freshwater puddle, or a Snowy Egret seen feeding and made even more visible and out of place against the dark peat bog background.

If you are here for June 2, 2007, you can get a first hand experience of birding in the Canso Peninsula with Stephen Bushell and Tom Kavanaugh of the Nova Scotia Bird Society. The walk will include a number of different habitats from Jack Pine woods to the coastal barrens of Louse Harbour. So put this date in your diary and plan to go greener as you park your car and take up the opportunity to explore several different local bird habitats in the Canso area. The group will meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Chapel Gully Trail parking lot. Come down Main Street in Canso, and turn right onto Union Street, pass the Marina, and then take the next right onto Wilmot. The parking lot is at the top of the hill and is sign posted.  Bring dry footwear, layered clothing, and packed lunch together with your binoculars and cameras for a day that will undoubtedly exceed your expectations.

There is something quite thrilling about being completely mentally and emotionally immersed in one’s natural surroundings, by way of focusing on the natural habitat of such a diverse group of birds as we find on our Eastern Shore in Nova Scotia. The connection to nature makes the delicate balance of life on our planet all the more real. We can see the visible effects of global climate change and weather patterns on the delicate coastal ecosystems for ourselves. The sustainability of rural coastal communities and our delicate coastal eco-systems along the Eastern Shore may well ultimately depend on how well we develop and promote ecotourism in the region.

Elizabeth Measures. April 2007

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