For many years I have been on the local citizen's advisory committee to the forest industry. The industry has been huge up here, and the amount of lumber that is taken each year is staggering. Over the last five years I have made inroads for most of the identified canoe routes, with larger buffers around rivers, lakes and campsites. The main victory has been for in-between lake portages. In the past, they just wiped them out. I wanted a hundred metre buffer on each side of the port, they settled on 70, which is still pretty good, compared to the previous destruction.
However, policing these routes has been handed over to the companies themselves, so it's the fox in charge of the chicken coup. I can't cover the distance that I used to, so paddling routes that have been identified as having cuts has become more difficult for me.
A new development has occurred in the Greenstone region. The major pulp mill that supports most of the cutting in the Kenogami plan has shut down, possibly for good. This will be an unprecedented boon for canoeists, as worrying about routes being impacted by cutting will cease to exist.
The downside is that the entire town of Terrace Bay will now be in trouble, as 400 people will be out of work, and also many people in surrounding towns involved in the harvesting process will also be out of work. As well, the major logging highways that many of use to access routes will no longer be maintained, and they will fall into a state of disrepair quite quickly, thus limiting access for recreational users.
Should be an interesting summer to see what happens to the roads. If you are planning a trip up here this summer, check in with me for road conditions. The Ogoki up to Marshall should be fine, as they supply lumber style wood for the mill in Nakina, but major arteries in the south, like the Catlonite and the Goldfield, could be out of commission.
However, policing these routes has been handed over to the companies themselves, so it's the fox in charge of the chicken coup. I can't cover the distance that I used to, so paddling routes that have been identified as having cuts has become more difficult for me.
A new development has occurred in the Greenstone region. The major pulp mill that supports most of the cutting in the Kenogami plan has shut down, possibly for good. This will be an unprecedented boon for canoeists, as worrying about routes being impacted by cutting will cease to exist.
The downside is that the entire town of Terrace Bay will now be in trouble, as 400 people will be out of work, and also many people in surrounding towns involved in the harvesting process will also be out of work. As well, the major logging highways that many of use to access routes will no longer be maintained, and they will fall into a state of disrepair quite quickly, thus limiting access for recreational users.
Should be an interesting summer to see what happens to the roads. If you are planning a trip up here this summer, check in with me for road conditions. The Ogoki up to Marshall should be fine, as they supply lumber style wood for the mill in Nakina, but major arteries in the south, like the Catlonite and the Goldfield, could be out of commission.