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A Cape Breton man says he is disappointed with Parks Canada’s decision to open a new trail to a popular waterfall without options for people with mobility issues.
Dave Cameron, a retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces, lives with a back injury that limits his movement.
“This location has been accessible to everyone for well over 50 to 60 years plus — since the beginning, it’s always been accessible,” Cameron said. “It’s just in the last five years things have changed.”
In the past, the old Mary Ann Falls Road allowed vehicle access to a parking lot at the head of the falls, located near Ingonish, N.S. But repeated washouts and storm damage to the road led Parks Canada to close it permanently in 2023.
Parks Canada has replaced it with a 13.9-kilometre round-trip hiking and biking trail, roughly following the route of the old road.
Cameron said that kind of distance is not doable for him.
“I enjoyed going there every year, especially in the fall, you know, with the colours and everything,” he said. “It was a very nice location to go.”
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Kersti Tacreiter, the interpretation co-ordinator for Parks Canada in Cape Breton, said the decision was made to close the old road because annual maintenance was costing between $50,000 and $60,000. She said that figure skyrocketed to more than $1 million following more severe weather events.
“This new trail has been built in such a way to be more resilient to the effects of climate change, to the increasingly powerful and frequent weather events that happen that are impacting and will continue to impact northern Cape Breton,” she said.
Tacreiter added that the agency currently has no plans to make the trail accessible to vehicles or those with mobility issues.
“At this time, this is the only way to access the falls,” she said.
According to Tacreiter, the old road did not meet modern engineering standards, making it highly vulnerable to washouts. Building a dedicated, modern vehicle road to the falls would come with an enormous price tag.
“To bring that road up to modern standards would cost well over $10 million,” she said.
Cameron said he tried speaking directly with Parks Canada officials, who told him that back-to-back extreme weather events made maintaining the roadway unsustainable.
While the site is no longer as accessible as it once was, Tacreiter said Parks Canada is glad to have restored at least partial access so people can still visit the area.
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