Algonquin Park Forestry - Algonquin Adventures Reader Feedback
Readers of Algonquin Adventures are invited to submit feedback on the AFA's sustainable forest management CSA certification process. Of particular relevance are your comments regarding what you feel are the values that draw you to Algonquin Park and bring you back again. Specially important are those values that the AFA impacts upon, or can have a part in protecting and/or improving. Feedback can be either by means of forum postings, email or email-attached documents.
Laurie March, hostess of www.OutdoorAdventureCanada.com, has emailed-in a letter describing her family's values and feelings concerning Algonquin Park ...
Jan. 6/07 - The March Family
Our family enjoys Algonquin Park on both a personal and professional level. From the professional perspective, Algonquin Park contributes to my livelihood as a writer, wilderness-cooking instructor and the owner of an online outdoor adventure magazine. I could go on about this but I think that the personal perspective is more important.
Algonquin Provincial Park is such a special place that I find it difficult to decide what I want to express without penning an entire novel. I thought a good beginning might be to ask the youngest member of the March Family, Tobias, who is almost 6, what Algonquin means to him. Tobias has canoed and hiked much of the park with us and has talked about the park to his class at school in both Junior and Senior Kindergarten so it means a lot to him. We take him to the park at least once a month during spring, summer and fall. I think his perspective is important and sometimes we can learn a lot from children. His words to me are as follows.
"It has wolves. Wolves are special. It has beavers and leeches. We see otters in Algonquin Park. Otters also live in lakes and streams. So does a big snapping turtle. Moose are important and that is why Algonquin Park is important. I want to be an animal rescuer when I grow up and I will help the baby wolves."
Then I decided to ask Bryan, my husband, why APP is special to him. Here are his words.
"Algonquin Park is like my wilderness church. It feels spiritual to me. I love the feeling I get when I see Tobias discovering the mysteries of Algonquin – it reminds me of my youth. It brings people back to the basics and away from the rat race of the city. Most of our travel is in the interior but there are exceptions. We adopted Tobias when he was just turning four and he has siblings adopted by other families. Each year all the families meet at Mew Lake and we have Thanksgiving together. Algonquin becomes the heart of our family gatherings."
Bryan’s words mirror what I feel. For me Algonquin Provincial Park means sanctuary. It gets our family away from the electronics, bustle and stresses of city life. It gives us a chance to bond without distraction.
The park atmosphere brings people closer together. We have met people on portages, in campgrounds, and on hiking trails. Sometimes a quick chat has developed into a relationship. People seem to be more open when away from the big cities – relaxed and friendlier. APP has been responsible for forging some of the best friendships we have made. For example, we met the people who have become our son’s godparents on the tiny portage between Grand and Stratton Lakes.
To me it is also a place of great history and education. There is not one time that I have gone to the park and not broadened my knowledge of its cultural history or its natural features. I have learned about Brule Lake and the Kase family. I have learned interesting things about the animals, bugs and flora of the park. This has also helped Tobias by providing first-hand learning experiences. Instead of seeing moose in a book, he has been face to face with moose in the park. He and I both also learned about the lifecycle of the park’s many damselflies and dragonflies.
Algonquin is about making memories too. We took my nephew and his girlfriend on their first canoe trip. The destination was Clydegale Lake. We stayed on the island and were the only group on the lake. A pack of wolves serenaded us that night and we listened in awe. It was magical and that trip made the couple fall in love with the park. A special trip - I think is why Tobias loves the Algonquin wolves so much as you could see from his comments.
To me, the beauty of Algonquin Park is something that must be here for my son to show his children and that is why I am writing this letter – so that you can see how important Algonquin Provincial Park is to our family.
The park management is so important especially the balance in the use of resources. I feel that this balance is a fragile one needing close monitoring. There are species at risk in the park and having protected zones is crucial to their survival. The old growth management is something of particular concern to me.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to express what our family feels about Algonquin Provincial Park. It means a great deal to us to be able to share our thoughts about what Algonquin is and will continue to be – a special place for our family - a place that makes us feel like we have come home.
Kind Regards,
Laurie March (along with Bryan and Tobias)
Outdoor Adventure Canada
Below are "values" postings extracted from the website forum ...
Author
Reply
Rick
206.172.78.68
Wild remnants
December 21 2006, 12:27 PM
Barry,
I could probably go on and on for hours about this, but I'll try and keep it brief.
To me, Algonquin is an island of isolated wild remnants, surrounded by lands that are becoming increasingly developed over with time, and being used by greater numbers of people with each passing year.
In Algonquin, millions of residents living in eastern North America, as well from other nations, can still find some more-or-less wild country to canoe, hike, fish, and enjoy nature in.
The thing that makes Algonquin most valuable is it's size. It's a large area, and allows the freedom to move around independently, to find that isolated wild spot that I can call my own.
In some places, interior travel brings one to roads and indications of industrial-grade logging. In other places, there are fewer disturbances, and one can see how things may have been before the development of Southern Ontario began.
These wild spots off the beaten track are often found along canoe routes, and in the limited system of nature reserves that form a mosaic inside the park's boundaries. Here, natural features are protected and continue to exist as they did for thousands of years when the landscape was still intact.
For me, the system of nature reserves and lands kept free of industry and development are most valuable - hopefully, these will increase in area and extent.
As more and more visitors come to Algonquin, more of the park needs to be given over to a landscape that's representative of the wild and natural state, to be protected and allowed to restore itself wherever possible.
207.236.59.70
Re: Input & Feedback Wanted !!!
December 27 2006, 10:29 AM
Barry
I've got a history with Algonquin that goes back almost 50 years. Some of my fondest memories as a youth were going to The Park with my parents. My late Dad was quite an outdoorsman and many of my camping skills were learned at the campgrounds on the corridor. I still have pictures of my sister and I feeding the deer that were so numerous in the late 50's and early 60's.
What does the park mean? Obviously, many things to many people. It's a place of revitalization and rejuvenation. It provides the opportunity to escape the rigors of our modern day society and it's fast paced lifestyle, a chance to kick back and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of a more natural world. What could recharge the personal batteries more that slipping quietly across a flat lake in your favorite canoe, or listening to the crackling of a campfire, with loons calling in the distance?
But it's also a first outdoor experience for many city bound people. I have taken a number of youth, through the scout movement, to the park where they have had their first taste of the Canadian Sheild. For kids from the flatlands of Southwestern Ontario, having the chance to experience the rugged terrain of the area, and to paddle a northern lake, is an experience that will hold lifelong memories.
It's a place steeped in history, and with the Logging Museum and the displays at the Visitors Centre, provides an educational experience, a view into Canada's past, that tourists, especially those from Europe, find fascinating.
You are to be commended for taking on this task with the AFA. Forestry is a huge part of Algonquin's past present and future. Finding a balance between commercial and recreational use of the resource, ensures that everyones needs are met, now and in years to come.
Good Luck
Kelly
Windsor, Ont
Trainman
216.46.133.10
Two things to say:
December 27 2006, 1:25 PM
First: One concern that I have is in the Harvest of the Pine. Currently, all of the older pine will be gone except for in the nature reserves and in other protected areas. I think that all pine over 120 years of age should be protected to make the sight of a gigantic pine a familliar sight to the Algonquin Landscape again.
Second: what does Algonquin mean to me? To me, it is a special place where I can get away from it all and have a nice vacation. It is a feeling inside of me... the feeling of cultural and natural heritage both very well alive only experienced in that place. It is a place where I may set out in a canoe, hike a trail, set up camp, and have a relaxing trip returning to the wilderness in which once covered all of the region- a place to visit a by-gone era, uncover the remains of a railroad or logging camp, see a moose or deer, or maybe hear the lonesome cry of a wolf.
Therefore, in my opinion, Algonquin is a place in which I may escape the daily ritual and forget all of my troubles for the week or more that I stay there, and return every year to make one with the wild.
Trainman
Sean
209.91.149.73
Algonquin to me
December 27 2006, 3:29 PM
Algonquin to me is a lot of things...
It's a second home: I lived in the park (literally) every summer from the ages of 16 to 23. I've lost track of the number of canoe trips and nights spent camping in the park since my first canoe trip to Radiant Lake when I was 8 years old.
It's the start of a career: I started working in Algonquin just as a summer job to save for school... and it ended up shaping what I wanted to do for my career - and now that I've become a national parks warden, I can't believe I've made it!
It's a model of balance: It still amazes me, having seen the park from "the inside" that for the most part, logging does not intrude into the experiences of the vast majority of park users. The fact that recreational uses and forest harvesting have been seperated in time and location from each other so well that you can have the feeling of wilderness in a place that is in reality only a few hundred metres away from part of the road network.
And finally: Having seen the level of protection afforded to national parks and seen the extent of logging practices in the non-protected Crown land of northern Ontario, it is a disappointment. To have such a special place not fully protected when the negative impacts of not only logging but the infrastructre of logging (i.e. roads, water crossings) are well known, to me is a shame. There's plenty of other wood out there, harvest it. (and I say this despite having friends who are closely linked to the logging in the park).
Yeah, so Barry, I know you said no anti-logging rants, but it has to be said.
When is a park no longer a park?
68.44.59.36
Re: AFA-CSA Advisory Process
December 27 2006, 6:05 PM
Barry,
I want to thank you, again, for your service to us all in this capacity. Your thoughtful eloquence will certainly manifest itself and lend greater value to our input in the eyes of other members of the advisory panel.
What Algonquin means to me, as an individual with 11 or 12 hours travel to reach the park, is a special destination that is a rare treat. As the old saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder" implies, the infrequency of visits makes each moment one to savor. Weather, fishing and wildlife sightings may be good or bad but all are welcomed to make for a fulfilling trip into the woods. I recognize that many of you who have the opportunity to experience the park on a more routine basis enjoy it immensely and I think it is important to keep that "special" nature of each visit. I would emplore you to promote the existence of the park as a priceless jewel that you have the good fortune to hold in your hand.
What I enjoy about the nature of Algonquin is the balance that presently, for the most part, exists. That is, the balance between the use of resources by recreational and harvesting users. The fact that large portions of the park are deemed "Wilderness Areas" will ensure that there are always destinations available that will retain that "untouched" appeal. It is critical, in my opinion, that these areas are at least maintained and possibly expanded in the future. Change is difficult but large changes become much more appealing if they are introduced slowly over time.
Your recommendation of publishing the harvest schedules early is an excellent one and can be enhanced by the inclusion of travel routes by the trucks and equipment required to haul the harvested timber. As you mentioned, you can easily camp on a site that isn't near any harvest area but get burned by the travel routes of the trucks to and from those areas that may be in your immediate vicinity. Publishing this information as well will help to avoid that scenario for the individuals who desire isolation and only the sounds of nature.
Thank you.
PaPaddler
Lancaster County, PA
Author
Reply
Rick
64.228.35.39
Re: AFA CSA Certification Advisory Group meeting
November 28 2006, 10:48 AM
Barry, you may have seen this recent report on Peter Quinby's ancient forests website, describing some of the remnant old growth in Algonquin, and continued logging of old growth allowed by the AFA since it's creation in 1974:
Besides the recommendations for protection, the report states that the dominant old growth conifer in the park is now hemlock, and not white pine which used to be the case in the natural, unaltered state. IMO, the reason for this is mainly due to economics in the logging industry... hemlock is a lower-quality sawlog and was passed over in favor of pine, resulting in more old growth hemlock stands still in place today.
The new Parks Act states that restoration of ecological integrity should be carried out where needed in Ontario parks, since there are parks like Algonquin, where integrity has been degraded. Unfortunately, Algonquin has also been singled out as an exception within the Act, so that logging can continue. In the case of logging old growth, the larger size and tight grain characteristics of old growth wood make it valuable in today's market, and I can see why the logging industry would want to keep on exploiting it.
In addition to protection of remant old growth and in keeping with the new Parks Act's goal of restoration of ecological integrity, there should be some initiative created to restore white pine old growth over a larger area, especially on the east side of the park where white pine used to be dominant.
During the past twenty years, I've enjoyed walking through some of the stands of large white pine on the east side, and have returned to see these logged off, with smaller pines left behind for continued harvest later on... somewhat upsetting, these places were more remote than the heavily-used canoe routes and hiking trails and had more of a "wild" feel.
I really don't know whether AFA would support the restoration goal as stated in the Parks Act and save some of the larger pine stands there to allow them to become protected old growth with time. MNR's definition of old growth, IIRC, is 140 years and older.
The need for increased protection and restoration of old growth forests deserves some recognition in Algonquin, especially as Southern Ontario becomes more heavily populated and wild areas become more heavily used with each passing year.
Author
Reply
Markus
70.29.108.214
Look forward to your report
October 16 2006, 8:22 PM
Hi Barry,
"Tree-huggers". Did I say that? lol!
Probably, but yes there are larger concerns, like effects on the local wildlife.
Anyhoo, I'll try to be brief, my largest concern(besides seeing trees getting chopped down), is an excerpt from your post;
"In addition, while the actual harvesting areas are marked on the Harvest Schedule Map, the routes of the log-hauling trucks are not. This results in interior campers, who are intentionally many miles from actual harvesting areas, still being distressed by the day-long noise of log-hauling trucks. Hopefully, the AFA could pre-advise the public of the extent of this activity also."
ohh..that has happened a few times, and oh yeah it is distressing!!! Although I realize it is in the best interests of both Park management and AFA, to not reveal the locations of these roads to the public, it is getting kind of difficult to conceal that fact isn't it? Like you mentioned earlier, Google Earth, has made it possible to examine areas of The Park with closer scrutiny.
I think for many others this is an important issue. It might seem a little selfish, as there are larger concerns as well, however in my perspective, driving 300+km(I know, some come from 1,000's of km away!), to get away from it all, and tune into nature, does not include diesel powered vehicles rumbling thru the 'quiet' forests of Algonquin. It really does 'wreck' the moment.
Markus
Etobicoke, Onterry-airy-airy-Ohhh!
70.24.238.149
Re: Look forward to your report
October 16 2006, 9:45 PM
"In addition, while the actual harvesting areas are marked on the Harvest Schedule Map, the routes of the log-hauling trucks are not. This results in interior campers, who are intentionally many miles from actual harvesting areas, still being distressed by the day-long noise of log-hauling trucks. Hopefully, the AFA could pre-advise the public of the extent of this activity also."
The 2005 - 2025 Forest Management Plan shows some(?) of the logging roads, http://www.algonquinforestry.on.ca/pdf/map9stage5.pdf . I know from personally looking that there are more roads than this, but they may be classified as tertiary.
Barry, as you mentioned, the closing of roads is very important to me. One big reason from a recreational point of view, is that every road into Algonquin opens the park up. Hunting and fishing, legally or not becomes an issue. As does illegal camping. As people on this board have mentioned in the past, having some guys drive to your lake 'in the middle of nowhere' doesn't exactly enhance your park experience. This year when portaging from Lk Louisa to Florence Lk we passed a primary logging road. On the road some 20m or so from where the portage joins the road was a parked pickup truck. That certainly was not a nice sight. For reference, there was no one around and the vehicle did not have MNR or AFA markings, although it did carry the name of the company that owned it on a sticker on the window. I don't expect it would be of any use to you, but I can provide more information if you want, including license plate number, etc.
Secondly, I have a big problem with the proximity of logging to portages and campsites. See one of Markus's triplogs for an example of this, http://www.markinthepark.com/triplogs_23d8.htm . Personally, I was on the north arm (North-east side) a few years back and there was a well-worn path right back to the scene of then-recent logging.
Algonquin Park Forestry - Algonquin Adventures Reader Feedback
