Kitt's Cave in Hammonvale, New Brunswick is a small active limestone cave with a resurgence and lots of formations that we often visit. The cave not only has many different formations but also a variety of different types of passages and problems. Kitt's Cave is a solution cave in the Windsor Group limestone of central New Brunswick. The cave is 141 meters long with eight meters of relief. It is named Kitt's Cave because it is one of the few known locations where beavers raise their young deep inside a cave in the spring (3). It is an active cave with a small stream flowing directly opposite of the above ground river outside due to the 25 degree dip to the northwest. The cross section of the cave shows evidence of three different dissolution sequences. The limestone in the area runs in narrow bands for some distance with two major bands in the area (5,6). Within these bands one finds not only Kitt's cave but also other major New Brunswick caves. These caves include Hamilton Cave, Glebe Pot,, Golem's Grotto, Dallings Cave, and the Waterford Ice Caves making it an excellent place to explore.

The current owners of the cave suggest that the cave has been know since the road was developed almost a century ago. But modern exploration of the cave appears to have first been done in the early 1970's by the Nova Scotia Speleological Society. Their first map dated April 1974 was published in several locations. It is shown in the NSSS newsletter which include the first recorded diving of the sump which took place Easter Weekend of 1974 when Max Moseley from the NSSS took 20 minutes to dive the sump and come out the other side (6). The map by Moseley is shown in the NSS Bulletin when the beaver population of the cave is discussed (3). The map is again shown in an article on the caves in Canada (7). The map is now kept in the New Brunswick Provincial Archives in Saint John, New Brunswick (1). The cave was remapped by the Caledocadie club in 1989 (1) and is found as part of an Open Government File. The cave was again mapped with greater detail and shows up in the Northeastern Caver in as part of a school field trip report (2). The cave is currently being used by several caving groups and remains fairly clean of graffiti.

The cave is located along the Hammond River just east of Route 111 in Hammondvale, New Brunswick. The cave is reached after a short walk along the edge of the owners' property and is accessed through a sinkhole near the river's edge less than 100 meters from the road. The entrance to the cave is found in a patch of forest over looking the river where the cave collapsed under the weight of the glacier forming a 15-foot deep sinkhole. At the bottom of the sinkhole is a small opening about one and half feet high and two feet wide that is the main entrance to the cave.

(1) Arseneault, S.P., Schroeder,J., Berube, D., and Albert,R. 1997. The Caves of Southwestern New Brunswick. New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources and Energy Open File 97-7.

(2) Hendrickson, E. 1998. "An Underground Chemistry Classroom" Northeastern Caver Vol. XXIX No. 1 March.

(3) McAlpine, D. 1977. "Notes on Cave Utilization by Beaver" The NSS Bulletin Vol 39, Number 3, July.

(4) McAlpine, D. 1983. Status and Conservation of Solution Caves in New Brunswick. The New Brunswick Museum Natural Science No 1.

(5) Moseley M. 1975. "New Brunswick 1975" Nova Scotia Speleological Society, Newsletter No.6 November.

(6) Richings, G. 1975. "New Brunswick 1974" Nova Scotia Speleological Society, Newsletter No.4 June.

(7) Thompson, P. (ed) 1976. Cave Exploration in Canada. University of Alberta, Edmonton

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