Become Masked Bandits – Earth Adventures

Go down (or around) the stairs from the parking lot and continue straight ahead and cross the canal bridge. Follow the path to the left immediately after the bridge and stop 20 m down the trail at the birch trees.

With their masked faces and sneaky ways, raccoons are nature’s robbers. These furry scavengers live by outsmarting other creatures. Life is full of surprises for a gang of bandits on the run. Can you become raccoons and survive the Raccoon Robber Challenge? Use the game cards to discover what awaits you around the next corner. Stay on your toes.

When you pick a card, do the prescribed action as you move down the trail.

Here is what the cards mean…

Do the Raccoon Ramble: take a few steps and hide behind a tree. Repeat.
Shake your bottom as you walk like an attractive raccoon.
Be a playful raccoon: take ten giant steps and do three spins. Repeat.
Have fun by skipping down the trail.
Be quiet and tiptoe down the trail.
Be a speedy raccoon and run to the next stop.

Raccoons have masks like thieves. You become a raccoon when you put on your mask. Hide behind a tree and communicate with the other raccoons in your gang by saying “trill, trill, trill” over and over again in a high pitched voice.

Do You Know?

From time immemorial, the Mi’kmaq paddled the Dartmouth Lakes by canoe, portaged across here and ultimately used the Shubenacadie (Sipekne’katik ) River to reach the Bay of Fundy. This was a major canoe route across Sipekne’katik (much of Central Nova Scotia), which is one of the seven major districts of Mi’kma’ki (the lands of the Mi’kmaq). Artifacts in this area date back 4,000 years. Waterways were the major transportation highways for the Mi’kmaq. The British began constructing the Shubenacadie Canal system to link the lakes and eliminate the portages in 1826. It took a long time to complete the canal, but it was finished in 1861. The installation of locks that could shift vessels across changing water levels opened access for ships that otherwise had to travel all around the southern coast of Nova Scotia to reach the Bay of Fundy. The canal system was used from 1861 to 1870 and then abandoned due to the shift to railroads.