Joggins Fossil Cliffs

June 26, 2022

Today we left PEI for Nova Scotia. As far as Nova is concerned she is the Queen of this place.

It was about a 3.5 hour drive today. I let everyone sleep until about 9 then I went to do laundry while the kids showered and played on the playground. The plan was to have lunch at the campsite before leaving however I totally forgot there was a checkout time! We got a friendly reminder to leave asap at around 11:45. We finished our lunch and packed up the camper and were ready to go by 12:30. The drive went smoothly. About half way through our trip I decided we should follow a sign that said “fossil cliff” which took us a half hour out of the way.

It’s free to go down to the waterfront. You can look at and touch the rocks and fossils but you can’t take any fossils home. We had no idea what exactly to look for and there were about a million rocks on this beach.

Those are the first “fossils” we found. Turns out those marks are just snail trails…like from the snails that are all over at the seashore. Doh! There was a tour happening while we were down there (it was $10 a person so we skipped it). I listened in a little and he said to look for dark objects or lines in stones. Later, he and the other staff helped us identify what we found. They encourage you to take pictures or bring the fossils you find in for them to display in the lobby.

Cal found this and it was identified as slag. It is created from deposits in coal engines and the steam engines often dumped them in waterways which is why we found it on the beach.

I can’t remember what he called this but he said it’s not native to this area and probably came from Boston??

Below are some examples of coal found on the beach. This was originally a coal mine but it was poor quality due to the sulfur (which made it smell like rotten eggs when it was burned) and the amount of iron in it so they stopped mining it.

Cal found this fossil of Calamites which was a bamboo-like plant.

Not a fossil. They said this is a rust stain.

That triangular thing in the center is a fossil. They didn’t know what kind but it is a plant.

While Esme, Cal and I were hunting fossils, Asa was playing in the mud. He insisted on taking some home with us.

Nova wasn’t too sure about this side adventure since she hates beaches but there wasn’t any sand on this beach, only rocks. She ended up enjoying herself.

Here are more fossils we found on the beach:

The guide showed us this one someone found today that we had an amphibian’s footprint on it. He said it’s the first footprint find of the year. It’s in the center of the gray rock below.

Even without any fossils it would be a beautiful place to visit. The excavating tools exposed part of the cliff so you can see the different layers of rock.