Paddling News

The Quebec Ministry of Environment is planning to protect more than 2,000 square kilometres of Outaouais rivers, forest and lakes in what wilderness enthusiasts hope will be the beginning of a provincial park about one third the size of Ontario's Algonquin Park.

Environment Minister Line Beauchamp has given Outaouais municipalities until Jan. 15 to comment on the plan to protect the Dumoine and the Noire rivers, north of Algonquin Park, Lac Poisson Blanc north of Val-des-Monts and an area north of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg reserve in Maniwaki.

Marie-Eve Marchand, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said the decision is important because it will protect the Dumoine, one of Quebec's most important whitewater canoeing rivers and the only corridor in Canada that links the boreal forest in the north and deciduous forest in the south.

Protected status means that logging, mining and other industrial land uses will be banned in the three wilderness areas. Hunting and fishing would be allowed in the protected areas, but would be banned if the areas became provincial parks.

Ms. Marchand said the plan would create a protected area about the same size as the one in Algonquin Park. Only 27 per cent of Algonquin Park is protected from logging and other commercial uses.

Quebec plans to protect 1,450 square kilometres in the Dumoine watershed and and 250 square kilometres along the Noire, about 220 and 120 kilometres west of Gatineau respectively.

The Dumoine River runs south from Machin Lake in La Vérendrye wildlife reserve to the Ottawa River near Rapide des Joachims, Que. It is the last free-flowing river without dams in southern Quebec.

"This designation has been a dream of people in the Ottawa region for the last 50 years and an active campaign since 2002," Ms. Marchand said. "The first step will be interim protection, probably next spring, and then there will take four to six years to do the management plan and conservation plan.

"These areas are important because Quebec has protected less than five per cent of its territory from development, while the Canadian average is more than nine per cent and the international average is over 13 per cent. The government has said it is going to reach eight per cent by 2008, but we are so far behind now that it is embarrassing."

Ms. Marchand said wilderness enthusiasts and officials at the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society hope the Dumoine and Noire watersheds will become a new Quebec provincial park and the other sites will be designated as biodiversity reserves.

More than 10,000 people a year use the Dumoine for canoeing, kayaking, camping, fishing and hunting. The Dumoine River has many canoe-access camping sites and a 20-kilometre hiking trail.

"There amazing campsites on the Dumoine and the Noire with many white pines that are more than 100 years old," Ms. Marchand said. "With the rapids going by, it is real wilderness.

"They are real white-water rivers that you can't paddle in the spring unless you are an expert."

Ms. Marchand said protected areas would cost tens of thousands of dollars a year to administer, but a new provincial park would cost up to $2 million a year to administer and the government would have to build facilities such as visitor centre roads and hiking trails.

Dennis Blaedow, president of the Pontiac Tourism Association and manager of Esprit Rafting, said the protected areas and the proposed provincial park on the Dumoine and Noire rivers are worthwhile because the region's economic future will be linked to eco-tourism, not forestry or a proposed federal penitentiary.

The region has lost hundreds of jobs during the past two years as sawmills closed because of a shrinking supply of suitable trees and the increasing value of the Canadian dollar.

Mr. Blaedow said Pontiac residents are apprehensive about whether a proposed federal penitentiary that could bring hundreds of permanent jobs would create an unacceptable security risk for the area.

The Pontiac's 18 mayors met this week with Lawrence Cannon, their MP and a senior cabinet minister, in an attempt to persuade the federal government to build a penitentiary in the area. No specific site has been put forward by the mayors, and the correctional service has not yet decided that it needs more space to house inmates.

Article Source: The Otttawa Citizen