Into the Tobeatic wilderness

We were heading for the Pollards Falls ranger camp, built in the early days of the Tobeatic's existence. The Tobeatic was set up in 1927 as a game sanctuary; the Pollards Falls camp was built to house the people who patrolled the park in order to assist members of the public who were in the Tobeatic, and to make certain regulations were followed.

The occasion of our trip was a meeting of the MTRI, which began its existence as a partner of the Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve, which itself was meeting in Liverpool over the weekend. The new chair of the MTRI is Diane Clapp, of Smith's Cove, and it was Diane's idea that the regular meetings of the association should be held where MTRI researchers were doing their work.

At the moment, one of the projects the MTRI has underway is research on old growth forests. Staff member Alain Belliveau is studying the health of various stands of old growth forest, one of which is near the area where the Pollards Falls ranger camp is located.

It was a grey day when we arrived. The night before, a winter storm had caused havoc in the Valley and in the Cobequid Pass, but on the South Shore, barely a snowflake had fallen. In front of the camp the Shelburne River – a Canadian Heritage River – flowed past, and surrounding the camp was a large stand of old hemlock, which gave a cathedral-like atmosphere to the camp.

Inside, a fire was burning and a carrot-ginger soup was on the stove. Leif Helmer, who works out of the protected areas division of the Department of Environment and Labour, is the point man for the Tobeatic. He told the group that the camp we were in was the headquarters, or base camp, for the patrols of the Tobeatic, and that there were nine other camps dotted around the area, each of them a day's travel apart.

Rangers would do a 10-day loop around the Tobeatic, he said. They would leave their canoes at the carries and walk through to the next lake, while returning rangers would pick up the canoes and continue on. At each place there would be a ranger cabin waiting, and the incoming rangers would stamp the time of their arrivals.

Some of those camps still exist, Leif said. Some have fallen down, and some have been removed, but the department is talking about restoring at least one of them.

On the way into the Pollards Lake camp, members passed the big base camp, which used to be in operation for loggers working the Rossignol forests. Peter Jones, who is with Bowater, said that this was one of the first areas logged when the mill was started in 1929. All of the provisions for all of the logging camps in the area would be brought into the big base camp, he said. There were upwards of 20 different camps in the Rossignol area.

Diane Clapp gathered the members of the MTRI around a table and began the meeting, going over current and proposed research work. She heard from the various committees that handle the research institute's work, discussed future projects and discussed funding for the institute. Precisely an hour and a half after the meeting began, it ended, and MTRI members fell upon the soup and sandwiches.

Outside, it was researcher Alain Belliveau's turn. People gathered around as he explained how he determined the health of a stand of old growth forest. He uses a forestry score sheet developed by Bruce Stewart, with the Department of Natural Resources. That sheet is a place to record how an old growth forest scores in terms of such factors as the number of large diameter trees, the age of those trees, the absence of human disturbance, the presence of dead and fallen wood, and the forest canopy and under storey of growth in the forest.

Alain showed how the size of trees is measured with a prism, and how he uses instruments to measure the height of trees. He described how an augur can take a core sample from a tree to determine its age, and how he had recently discovered a hemlock that was close to 260 years old.

Then, with some reluctance, people piled into the vehicles and headed back out. - Tom Sheppard can be reached at twsheppard@gmail.com