Prisoner’s Cave, Halifax County, Nova Scotia

We crossed Governer’s Brook on the biker bridge and found an old foundation on the hill at the other side of the brook. We Followed the well used trail South East towards the lake.
Quite a network of interconnected trails run through here and the potential for confusion exists. Keep on the most used looking trails. Near the lake the path forks into the mountain bike trail and the footpath, both take you to the lakeshore. At the shore of Colpitt Lake we went south to the mouth of Governer’s Brook. This is the brook whose watershed could be disturbed by the impending Armoryan Development.
The brook is currently remarkably clear for this area showing little of the brown bog tinting that colours so many other streams in this region. Anything that hurts this brook will hurt Colpitt lake, anything
that hurts Colpitt lake will hurt Williams Lake.
The outlet of the brook shows signs of being bridged at some time past by a rough stone causeway likely associated with the Yeadon Stone Quarries that operated over a wide area of the Willaim’s Lake / Colpitt Lake area. A large overhanging granite cliff dominates the landscape near the brook’s mouth. Modern signs of fire and graffitti show it still is used as a local gathering spot.It would seem a very likely place to have hosted native inhabitants in ancient days.

We backtracked along the shore of Colpitt Lake to it’s head at the extreme North West corner of the lake.The lake lies right at the contact between the granite and the slate formations.The Western shore of the lake is granite hills and hummocks and the eastern shore is rounded slopes of iron stained slates and quartizites. The head of the lake has the remains of an old stone and earthwork dam that was once used to control the water level in Colpitt Lake. Immediately downstream of the badly broken dam a canal-like ditch has been cut through soil and rock to create a small sluiceway for the outlet brook. These old works are also presumably related to the scattered quarrying operations in the area.An ice sluice to slide stone blocks from Colpitt lake down to the old Stone Road that serviced the quarries at Williams Lake would have been a handy thing for those who used ox and horse to move multi-ton blocks of stone. The entrance to the Prisoner’s Cave was supposed to lie somewhere along the banks of this brook as an obscure opening under a pile of boulders.

Where I had expected typical Spryfield style dense coniferous woods along the brook side I found an excellent footpath that followed the brook downstream on its southern side.
The brook runs through a low valley perhaps located along the line of geological contact. The small bottomland is incredibly lush looking even at this dreary time of the year. Very large birch, maple and pine all rise with their feet almost washed by the brook. The surrounding slopes are quite open woods and at this early season it was quite easy to scope out potential rockpiles as we ambled downstream.
Roughly one third to one half of the way to Williams Lake a prominent large cliff/rock pile showed on the other side of the brook. A couple dark openings visible under the boulders beckoned me over. One opening led to a small crawl-way passage that got me a bit excited ,however a better investigation showed the passage was blocked by stone a few meters in and would not lead to a suitable place for human shelter. Another crevice higher up the rocky hill I also investigated with similar results.