Nature Preserve debate could ignite powder keg

Call it female intuition, but I have an uneasy feeling about the Wolfville Watershed Nature Preserve on the South Mountain. There’s no doubt the 600-acre site is an amazing ecological asset to the community at large. Hallelujah; the rare old-growth hemlock forest, wetlands and brooks, and a diversity of interesting plant life will never be developed.

As Bonnie Sutherland, executive director of the N.S. Nature Trust has pointed out, it’s a local community resource known, enjoyed and treasured by generations of local residents. The problem is the way this land has been enjoyed isn’t necessarily part of the vision for the future. There looks to be control issues.

Folks in Forest Hill and wider environs have used this parcel of land for eons as recreational land. They’ve ridden their horses, cross-country skied and maneuvered off-road vehicles along paths for years. Now I'm told that only humans on foot will be welcome in the newly designated nature preserve.

It was back in January that I first began to hear rumblings of unhappiness about what the town and the 'old folks' had decided. The passionate mountain bikers who've been making a few new trails were the first to complain about the ban. They felt the work of the town committee hadn't been made public enough and that there’s a difference between low impact use and non-mechanized use.

Surely man has already impacted the land building a dam, access roads for big vehicles and rusted debris left behind decades ago. Then there’s the parking lot being built.

Obviously there was unanimity about the most sensitive old growth parts of the acerage, but couldn't other areas be set aside for recreational use?

Looking for property guardians

Lately, I've heard that all-terrain vehicle use of the property has increased significantly due to the restrictions. Either people have decided to get maximum time in while they can or they simply want to flout the rules. Nobody knows exactly.

Meanwhile the town has secured two sizable bequests for property management, stewardship, enforcement and monitoring. The nature trust is now looking for volunteer property guardians to help monitor the site. They will be asked to ensure the long-term stewardship of Nature Trust conservation lands by conducting monitoring visits. No scientific background is required, but training is provided. Reading between the lines, is this a call to recruit unpaid police?

According to the trust, property guardians will help ensure the long-term stewardship of these lands. "These volunteer positions are a great way of spending time outdoors while helping to keep protected sites unspoiled and safe for everyone."

There’s going to be a guided walk and orientation session at the preserve July 21. Hopefully some of these issues will be ironed out then.

Listening to the grumbling in recent months, I couldn't help recall the famous drowning tale of Isaac Chipman around the time Acadia University was founded. The president of the day said, "six precious souls and a man from Gaspereau" were lost.. No doubt he lived to rue that comment.

In fact, that story is often cited as the start of a town/mountain divide. It was only in recent years that a monument to the soul of the man from Gaspereau was erected in the village to counter the negative image ascribed to one man. But the monument's existence gives weight to the rankling that existed for 150 years. It hasn't gone away.

In 1957, for example, the late sociology professor Esther Clark Wright, in her book Blomidon Rose, voiced the prevailing prejudice of the townsfolk against mountain people. Wright writes in several places about a “well known breed resulting from the marriage, many generations ago, of two members of good families, one of whom was of feeble intellect." Speaking of her handyman, she says "‘Sonny from the Mountain’ was my usual designation for him," deriding the fellow as one of that breed.

I worry that the age-old prejudices still exist. Are the rules about the use of the nature preserve well-intended, but paternalistic? Could it be that folks from the Gaspereau Valley will not take kindly to being told to curtail use of land to which they’ve had access for generations?

Finally, will they view the dictums of Wolfville people as outright bullying? Hopefully I'm wrong.