WALLACE
Wallace Harbour (45°49'N., 63°29'W.) at the mouth of the Wallace River, has depths of 4.3 to 9.1m in a narrow channel between drying mud flats. The alignment of the outer range lights crosses Oak Island Bar, composed of sand with a depth of 2.7m, into Ship Channel. Ship Bar, with a least depth of 4.3m and marked by two buoys, provides a deeper but less direct approach. This channel is entered on a W course, 0.5 mile N of Gravois Point; course is altered to the NW after passing Buoy UH2, moored at the S limit of Oak Island Bar. Buoy UH3 is moored close to the E edge of Horton Bank, and course is then altered to the alignment of the outer range lights.
Within the harbor, drying flats of stiff red clay lie either side of the narrow buoyed channel. A drying middle ground, 0.5 mile W of Palmer Point, further diminishes the width of the channel to about 90m. Nearly abreast the E end of the middle ground a narrow channel leads to the S and then through drying flats into Lazy Bay, which has gypsum cliffs 9.1m high at its head. The land on the S shore of the harbor rises gradually to the summit of a 122m high ridge.
There is an L-shaped government wharf at Wallace Village on the S side of the harbor, with a depth of 3.4m at the 43m outer face. Two ruined wharves lie to the E of this wharf. A bridge crosses the river at Betts Point, 0.5 mile W of the government wharf.
Anchorage may be taken, in depths of 6 to 11m, mud, inside the harbor entrance, close W of Palmer Point, where the channel is 228m wide. Fairly safe anchorage may be found in 5.8 to 8.2m, mud, W of the buoy off Horton Bank.
Tidal currents attain a rate of 1.5 knots in the entrance. The ebb is somewhat stronger in the spring from the snow run-off.
Range lights are shown on Mullins Point, on the N side of the harbor entrance. The front light is shown from a square skeleton tower; the rear light is shown from a similar structure. These lights, in line bearing 280.5°, lead across Oak Island Bar and into Ship Channel to the point of intersection with the inner sector light.
Wallace Harbour Sector Light is situated on Macfarlane Point. The light is shown from a white pyramidal tower with a red vertical stripe. The white sector indicates the preferred channel.
A light is shown from a red square skeleton tower on the outer end of the government wharf at Wallace.
Caution.—It is strongly recommended that the services of a local pilot should be obtained for vessels of even moderate size unless previous experience and local knowledge have been acquired.
Fox Harbour, between Mullins Point and Mackenzie Point, consists of a channel through drying flats of red clay and weeds. There are depths of 4.3 to 7.6m in this channel, but only 1.2m over the bar from Ship Channel.
The coast between Mackenzie Point and Pugwash Point is unbroken and composed generally of clay and sandstone cliffs about 15.2m high, rising inland to a ridge 45.7m high.
Numerous shoals, some of them detached, lie with depths of less than 5.5m up to 1.5 miles off this coast, and depths of 6.7 to 7.6m lie up to 3.5 miles N of McLean Point.