My family and I just moved back to Canada from the USA. We will be spending the summer living in Nova Scotia with my in-laws. Nova Scotia is not exactly a hotbed of backcountry activity. Does anyone have any recommendations for good day hikes and backpacking trips?

Cape Breton is beautiful, and has lots of nice short hikes. I'm not sure what long hike options are available, but I recall meat cove being interesting and perhaps having some longer hike/camp options.

Maybe take the ferry to Newfoundland? I think there's lots of great hiking in the Gros Morne area.

Thanks for the suggestions Chris. I have Cape Breton in my head for longer weekend/backpacking trips. I am also interested in finding some good day hikes too that are a little closer to home, we are currently staying about an hour south of Halifax.

Seriously, worth checking out:

http://eastcoasttrail.ca/

250 Km. No stress, just start walking from St. Johns. The taxi back from the end of the trail back to St. Johns is $80. Supposedly, you can fish any lake in NFLD without a license and almost all the water on the rock is drinkable without needing to treat.

That looks like a very cool trail! Thanks for posting that.

I know someone who hiked into Kejimkujik National Park and really liked it. On the map there seem to be two locations, he went to the one in the interior. N.S. is very beautiful.

Yes, that one is on my list to. I have been to the Kejimkujik adjunct (the one on the coast) but not the one on the interior yet.

Well, for those of you who are interested, we just posted a trip report on some day hikes we did in Kejimkujik National Park: http://www.adventureinprogress.com/kejimkujik-second-time-around

This week we will be doing a 4 day backpacking trip to Cape Chignecto. We plan on doing a trip report on that as well.