Autumn is ablaze in Cape Breton, a rugged and beautiful island at the northern tip of Nova Scotia, Canada, on Oct. 13, 2016.

How rugged is Cape Breton? “On the first day, God created Cape Breton,” The Times has written. “On the second day, He threw rocks at it. So they say in Nova Scotia, anyway, and from the Cabot Trail, the two-lane road that loops around and through Cape Breton Highlands National Park, it takes only a glance over the guardrail to get it.

“One moment the earth is sweet and solid: bogland and pine barrens stretching in all directions, pressed like the palm of Atlas against the sky. A dip, a turn and then, beyond the road's edge, the horizon collapses, green tumbles into blue, sheer granite cliffs drop into heaps of boulders washed far below in the Atlantic.