Acadia Nature Woodlands Trail

The Acadia Nature Woodlands Trail in Wolfville is a fabulous hike to take in all seasons.

The K. C. Irving Environmental Science Centre and Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens is located at Acadia University, 32 University Avenue, Wolfville. The entrance to the Gardens is located off University Avenue, to the far left of the main entrance of the building. Look for the cast iron archway featuring the name of the Gardens.

There are so many wonderful pathways through the garden that features the different ecosystems found in Nova Scotia.

You could spend the afternoon traversing the brooks, or walking through the herb gardens. Most of the plants are labelled, so it’s a great learning opportunity, too.

If you want to extend your walk, the gardens connect with the Woodland Trails.

Your best bet is to stop into the Irving Centre and pick up a map. These maps can be found to the right when you go in the main entrance. This way, you can properly map out your walk.

Or, go here to get a PDF version of the hiking trails.

The Woodland trail is a 1.5km hike through the woods that follows an old brook and takes you through a variety of forest habitats. There are 2 shorter loops that you can take if you don’t have enough time for the whole trail.

I have done this walk several times with the boys, and it has easy terrain and is a perfect distance with interesting scenery!

Most recently, my friend and I decided to go here for our weekly snowshoeing adventure.

We parked at the top of University Avenue and picked up the trail from the side entrance (near where the picnic shelter is on the map).

I have an Acadia parking pass, so we could easily park here, but for others, there are parking meters on campus, or you can park for free, depending on the zone, after certain hours. The parking regulations are here. Otherwise, try parking at the top of the hill (near the Kwick Way or on a side street).

The opening to the trail was a bit tricky to find because of all the snow.

But, once we climbed the snowbanks to get in, it was smooth sailing. This is a well-used trail, so the trail was groomed and well-tamped down, making it an easy trail. We just had to follow the snowshoe trail, and didn’t even really need our trusty map!

The trail winds through the forest and is a beautiful, peaceful place to visit.
Along the way, there are wooden posts with signs pointing the way back to the Irving Centre.

We chose to follow our map and walked through the Norway Spruce Forest before crossing Skyway Drive to go through the White Spruce Falling Forest.

At the top of this forest there is an old water well that supplied water to Acadia’s farm during the 1800s.

From here, we continued along the path and back across Skyway into the Falling Brook and Old Growth Forest. We ended up on University Avenue across the street from where we entered the trail.