The story of the cave

The Mi’kmaq have lived on the land now known as Nova Scotia for at least 12,000 years, and the journey to Kluskap’s Cave traces the steps taken by their ancestors for millennia. 

Today, from a 150-year-old cliffside homestead, the trail traces a path through a forest of birch, black spruce and balsam fir, before dropping steeply down a rocky stream bed to sea level. At the beach, an opening at the waterline leads to the cave where oral tradition states Kluskap once lived, from which he started his journey to the spirit world and to which he will eventually return. 

Clifford Paul, of Membertou First Nation, regularly brings Elders, young people and other visitors to the cave, telling them the story of how Kluskap was travelling along the shoreline when two maidens standing on the shore began to tease him. Furious, Kluskap jumped on his canoe, cracking it in two — creating the Bird Islands that sit just offshore. The waves created by his leap struck the shoreline and turned the maidens into the stone cliffs that rise above the cave, their faces forever preserved on the landscape.

In recognition of its sacredness, the cave was nominated as a federal National Historic Site in 2012. In 2015, the cave and 2,800 hectares of Crown land around it, known as Kluskap Mountain, became a provincial wilderness area, affording it protection from development. 

Yet protection was not complete: in 2017, the mining industry proposed a quarry on Kluskap Mountain, prompting protests from Mi’kmaw communities. Meanwhile, much of the land in the area was privately owned — including the property at the start of the trail — making it vulnerable to the whims of property owners. For the Mi’kmaq, it was clear another approach was needed. 

Patricia Nash, former Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area program manager at the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources, which has been coordinating work on the area, says Elders initially questioned the idea of buying property as private property ownership runs counter to Mi’kmaq values about collective responsibility for the land. Nash assuaged those concerns by noting that the money came from the federal government, making it a form of reconciliation. 

Meanwhile, in 2023, the province and the Mi’kmaq agreed to shared governance of the wilderness area, covering the Crown land portion — the first such agreement in Nova Scotia history.

While the total area has not yet been formalized with the provincial government, the Mi’kmaq now assert Kluskap’s Cave as an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area. It has also grown beyond the original boundaries of the wilderness area, with the proposed area covering roughly 8,400 square kilometres, including marine areas, offshore islands such as the nearby Bird Islands and corridors to Cape Breton Highlands National Park to the northwest and the Bras d’Or Lake Biosphere to the south. “It’s kind of like bringing this whole quilt together, in different pieces, to make up the IPCA,” says Nash.

Traditional teachings

For the Mi’kmaq, the first priority is that lands in the Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area are given time to heal. Nash says this doesn’t rely on fortress conservation — a model of biodiversity protection in which people are separated from landscapes and kept out of ecosystems. Instead, Kluskap’s Cave offers a way to repair the human relationship to nature and connect people to nature in a better way. 

This starts on the trail that leads to the cave and back. Clifford Paul says this trail, which climbs and descends along steep stream beds and winds through a forest floor made of interlocking tree roots, challenges visitors physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, offering lessons along the way. “It is one where you observe, you learn from nature, you appreciate nature, and you learn to respect Mother Earth and all that dwells upon it.”