| PROPOSED
TOBEATIC WILDERNESS AREA ADDITIONS The Tobeatic: Time to finish the job |
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Background
At 104,000 hectares, the Tobeatic Wilderness Area in southwestern Nova Scotia is the largest protected wilderness in the Maritimes. “The Toby” and the adjacent Kejimkujik National Park together protect 142,000 hectares of softwood dominated woods with many barrens and wetlands. The best way to discover the Tobeatic by canoe. When people paddle into this wilderness they usually disappear for days. Exploring the dozens of remote lakes and the rivers, streams and old Indian paths linking them would take much longer. Many of the traditional canoe routes were made famous by Albert Bigelow Paine’s renown 1908 book, The Tent Dwellers. Like today’s visitors, the adventurers during Paine’s time followed routes that had been known to the Mi’kmaq for centuries. Glaciers have also left their mark on the Tobeatic, as much of the terrain is littered with granite boulders and crisscrossed by eskers. Due to its inaccessibility and its size, the Tobeatic remains a stronghold for Nova Scotia’s only population of native moose and several other mammals including black bear, bobcat, river otter, and the rare pine martin. Until the early 1900s caribou roamed here too. The Tobeatic also provides a home for the threatened Blandings Turtle, and at least four species of endangered or threatened plants. After four previous failed
attempts, the Province finally afforded legal protection to most of the
Tobeatic in 1998. However, concessions to
Priority additions to the Tobeatic Wilderness Area proposed by the Tobeatic Wilderness Committee and the Ecology Action Centre are as follows:
Area 1: Eighth Lake 400
ha
Eighth Lake
After putting in at Lake Joli and completing a short portage through the woods to Ninth Lake, the arrival at Eighth Lake gives the traveler time to reflect on their first taste of the Tobeatic. Nearly everyone accessing the Tobeatic Wilderness Area from the Bear River side passes through the Eighth Lake block. The block encompasses a chain of four small undeveloped lakes that must be traversed as the paddler works their way down the Sissaboo River system to Whitesand Stream. It contains red spruce dominated woods. The other lakes are called, appropriately enough, Ninth Lake. Seventh Lake, and Sixth Lake. Although this site is just
400 hectares, it needs to be protected to retain the wild character of
the Tobeatic’s main access point. You know what they say about first
impressions…
Whitesand Stream
This 800 hectare block lies
adjacent to the Tobeatic Wilderness Area’s northwest border, nestled between
Whitesand Stream and Sporting Lake Stream. Both streams lead into the deep
wilderness. To prevent deforestation and fragmentation adjacent to
the Wilderness Area, and to preserve the historic appeal of the Tobeatic
for backcountry recreation it is crucial that the Whitesand Stream lands
be put off limits for logging.
Lake Franklin
Sadly the Department of Natural
Resources allowed JD Irving Ltd. to log this 300 hectare intrusion into
the Tobeatic “finger”. When the company is through stripping these
public lands of timber we want them to leave for good. Rip up the
road and give this land a break.
Sisketch Lake
From the air the Siskech
Lake lands look like a big boot stomping rudely into the east side of the
Tobeatic Wilderness Area: 3,500 hectares of vulnerable “small w” wilderness
almost completely surrounded by protected area. Kejimkujik National
Park borders the site to the north. The Siskech Lake lands boast
several old white pine – red spruce forest stands, access to a dozen undeveloped
lakes, and over ten kilometres of woods on the Shelburne and Roseway River
canoe routes.
The block’s exclusion from
the Tobeatic Wilderness Area puzzles traditional users of the area.
These lands were part of the former Tobeatic Wildlife Management Area and
anyone familiar with the area would consider them to be part of “the Tobeatic”.
The Province claims they
omitted Siskech Lake because it contained roads. But the roads haven’t
been used for years, and to our delight they are starting to grow over
(some have disappeared!). Try telling people who have canoed or walked
the Siskech area that these lands aren’t wild enough. They will tell
you - many of them passionately – about the old pines on Irving Lake, the
huge bear and moose tracks they have followed, the hoots of barred owls
heard through the night sky, or of the evenings spent at camp patching
up their canoe in hopes that, maybe tomorrow, the rapids on the Shelburne
River will be more forgiving.
Make no mistake about it,
the Siskech Lake block is wild country. It needs to be in its rightful
place, where it always belonged, in the Tobeatic Wilderness Area.
Size and Location:
Description:
DNR's forest inventory documents several potential climax forests of white
pine and mixed conifers (including eastern hemlock and red spruce). There
are certainly immature old growth white pine stands around Irving Lake and
probably through the block. These older stands, with old-growth
characteristics make the value of this land for conservation and recreation
impressive. The block's value to foresters, on the other hand, may be
limited. Irving Lake and Great Pine Lake are included in the block in
their entirety. Sisketch, Junction, Little Pine, and East Bingay Lakes all
have shoreline included in the block.
Outstanding Natural Features and Opportunities:
Aboriginal History:
Recreation:
The Shelburne River Management Plan proposes five wilderness campsites in
this block. There are already several primitive camping sites whose
locations are stumbled upon by lucky campers or passed on by word of mouth.
Portages are also primitive, some with trees marked since the days of the
Tent Dwellers.
The Tobeatic is a canoeist's paradise,
and includes the Shelburne River which was designated as a Canadian Heritage
River in 1997. The traditional Roseway Route through the Sisketch block
takes canoeists from Kejimkujik National Park down the Shelburne River
to Irving Lake, west through Sisketch, House,
and Junction Lakes to the Roseway River and Shelburne. The Tobeatic Route leaves
Sand Lake and follows the Tobeatic Lakes west through to the Roseway River.
Logging in or around wilderness areas used by nature enthusiasts canoeing or
hiking to Indian Lookoff could have several negative impacts. Increased
runoff following logging would hamper recreational canoe use, barren
landscapes and changes in wildlife populations would decrease the asthetic
value to campers.
The Tobeatic:
The southern portion of the Tobeatic was originally designated a Game
Sanctuary, and later a Wildlife Management Area. Later on, the Province
attempted to pass legislation to protect the area. In 1998 the Province
finally designated most of the Tobeatic as a Wilderness Area, under the new
orivincial Wilderness Areas Protection Act.
Despite all this, the job of protecting it is not finished. The area is
surrounded by large expanses of timberland that hasn't been harvested
intensively until recently. Extensive road building and clearcutting, ATV
traffic, and poaching all threaten the prisitine and compelling nature of
this block, and indeed all of the Tobeatic Wilderness. Protecting the
Sisketch Lake block is also crucial to maintaining the wilderness character
of the Tobeatic and the Shelburne River.
Reprinted from the Halifax Daily News ©
Roads threatening remote lake area
The boot-like area - shaped like a mini-Italy - borders a popular canoe route on the Shelburne River, a federally designated heritage river.
Paddlers can explore giant rocks displaced by glaciers, and mature softwood forest stands.
Wild and wooly'
"It depends how fast you like to paddle and how much rum you like to carry," he jokes.
But Todd and others weren't laughing two years ago. That's when the province left out one side of the stream linking these lakes when it designated 104,000 Tobeatic hectares off-limits to forestry, mining or road-building. The reason? The ecosystem was mainly young forest and marred by the logging roads.
David Dagley, of the Queens County Fish and Game Association, said the boundary should be extended. Dagley is concerned logging one side of the river would make for faster spring runoff. Without trees, the soil would be unable to release water slowly, and the streams would become too shallow to paddle earlier each spring.
"You should take the boundary to the top of that watershed, to the top of the hill," he said.
A Department of natural Resources spokeswoman said no timber licences and mineral claims are granted. However, the area's legal status means timber could possibly be cut in the future.
Nova Scotia's Environment Department is concerned. In a July 1999 letter to the committee, then-environment minister Michel Samson said the excluded land is "critical to the effective long-term management of the Tobeatic Wilderness Area particularly to ensure quality wilderness travel opportunities and to control motorized-vehicle access."
Loss of habitat
Todd believes letting the logging roads fall into deeper disrepair is a step towards eventual legal protection.
"Let's retire the road and let nature take its course," said Todd.
Indian Fields Road
Roads and wilderness don’t
mix. Roads bring habitat fragmentation, edge effects (parasitism,
predation, and windthrow), illegal dumping, exotic species,
and access for poachers and off-road vehicles.
Yet the current boundaries
of the Tobeatic Wilderness Area run inexplicably up one edge of the Indian
Fields Rd. and down the other, an almost 15 kilometre intrusion into the heart
of the Tobeatic. The road, which begins at Route 203, leads past an
unprotected 1,000 hectare inholding all the way to Silvery Lake.
ATV damage to the Tobeatic is increasing exponentially, much of which may not heal itself in our
lifetimes. Keeping this road open only to access camp leases in the interim will allow the
destruction to continue. TWC estimates that within another 2-3 years, ATVs will have reached the
most remote and roadless areas in the Tobeatic, and its unique character will be lost.
As is, the road is a management nightmare,
and has made it impossible to police and enforce Department regulations.The threats posed by the
road and the inholding can be eliminated if the Province extends the boundary
of the Tobeatic Wilderness Area just 66’ across the Indian Fields Road, absorbs the large
Crown block, and exchanges the private inholding with land of equal value
and potential outside the boundary.
TWC recommends that the trailhead for the
Tobeatic Wilderness Area be established at Upset Falls on the Roseway River, and that motorized
access beyond that point be denied.
Napier River
The proposed Napier River
addition to the Tobeatic Wilderness Area encompasses roughly 4,700 hectares
of public forest along the headwaters of the Napier River. It lies
adjacent to the Wilderness Area’s western border and contains more productive
forest than what is typically found in the protected area, including many
stands of old conifers.
The Province carved off 1,400
hectares from the future Tobeatic Wilderness Area here in 1997 to fulfill
a generous wood supply commitment to JD Irving Ltd. In return for
wood at Napier River, the company “agreed” not to log the public lands
at the Tobeatic “finger”. As is custom, the Department of Natural
Resources negotiated the wood allocation behind closed doors and with little
thought to how cutting rights would compromise protected areas planning.
JD Irving Ltd. has temporarily
agreed to stop harvesting in the portion of this block within a mile of
the former Nova Nada monestary. The company advertises the site as
the “South Carrying Road Lake Wilderness Area”, but it has no legal protection.
The Province acquired this
small parcel adjacent to the Tobeatic Wilderness Area in 1998. This
property includes about two kilometres of frontage on the Roseway River
system.
For more information on proposed
additions to Nova Scotia's Protected Areas Systems Plan, visit the Ecology
Action Centre's Integrated Resource Management website, and learn more
about our province's Endangered
Hot Spots.
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