A Landowner’s Gift Protects the Summit of Nova Scotia’s Highest Peak

American Friends of Canadian Conservation (AFCC), in partnership with the Nova Scotia Nature Trust (NSNT), has facilitated the permanent protection of 107 acres on Wilkie Sugar Loaf Mountain in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This includes the mountain’s summit, the highest free-standing peak in the province. The land was donated by John Newton, whose family has spent summers on the mountain for more than sixty years. NSNT will steward the property going forward.

 

Newton’s family found the area by accident in the early 1960s, when a rained-out camping trip across Newfoundland sent them back to Cape Breton looking for dry ground. They landed in a small campground in Sugar Loaf, kept returning, and bought property there in 1965. “We began to discover that it was a place where a lot of people summered from different parts of America and Canada,” Newton said.

The mountain has history of its own. During the Second World War, a lookout station on the summit watched for German submarines after torpedo attacks on local ferries. “It’s a wonderful short day hike up and back, and a spectacular view from the top,” Newton said.

Newton discovered AFCC when he started doing research on conservation options for the property. When he spoke with NSNT, they shared that they had done several land conservation projects with AFCC. “The whole picture became pretty clear all of a sudden,” Newton said.

The land protects critical habitat for Bicknell’s Thrush, a Threatened species under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, and supports Bank Swallow, American Marten, and Canada Lynx. It also secures the westernmost stretch of the Wilkie Sugar Loaf hiking trail, a route hikers have used to reach the summit for years.