The defining feature of Nine Mile Woods Wilderness Area is a series of rolling hardwood hills, known as drumlins. These hills are dominated by stands of mature yellow birch and sugar maple. Interspersed in the hollows between the hills are a handful of small lakes and stillwaters.

The wilderness area includes a significant portion of the headwaters of McKeen Brook, a critical Atlantic salmon spawning tributary of St. Marys River, and helps maintain water quality in the headwater lakes and brook.

While there are currently no managed trails, Nine Mile Woods Wilderness Area can be accessed from a multi-use trail on the abandoned railway corridor that runs along its southern boundary. A pipeline corridor that bisects the wilderness area between Lewis and Timber lakes, and which is not part of the wilderness area, also provides access. Both the pipeline corridor and the abandoned rail line are part of regional off-highway trail networks.

Nine Mile Woods is the only wilderness area that provides some representation of the Aspen Drumlin Plain Natural Landscape in Nova Scotia’s protected areas network.