The Rural Voice, 1986-09, Page 13NATIONAL PARK
FOR
BRUCE
COUNTY?
by
W.
Merle
Gunby
"The The Bruce" has always
1 been known as a place
apart. Arriving comparatively late,
settlers not only found a thin poor
soil interrupted by bedrock, they
learned that the large companies
owned all the timber rights. Thus
settlers were deprived of this ready
source of income when they need-
ed it most to become established.
Those who are born of the Bruce
or have spent their lives there have
developed a fierce independent
pride in their land and lifestyle.
OTTAWA, December 2, 1981
— Hon. John Roberts, Federal
Minister of the Environment, to-
day announced that public con-
sultations will begin shortly to
determine the feasibility of
establishing a new national park at
the tip of the Bruce Peninsula
within the townships of St. Ed-
monds and Lindsay.
This announcement delighted
naturalists who had been pushing
for a national park in the Bruce
Peninsula for over 30 years. Many
area residents, especially those in
the tourist business, liked the idea;
however, many farmers and coun-
try landowners weren't so sure
about it. Past experience with
timber companies and of-
ficialdom, and more recently with
the overzealous regulations of the
original Niagara Escarpment Com-
mission Plan, taught them to have
a healthy skepticism of govern-
ment representatives bearing
messages of good cheer.
During the '70s, Parks Canada
established a plan to create at least
one national park representing the
different ecological areas of
Canada. Martin Parker, from Port
When The Rural Voice visited the area in early July, Roland Parsons,
who farms just north of the proposed park area, said: "1 don't think the
park will affect me much, but I wish they'd just leave us alone. Some
guy was in here a little while ago; he said I shouldn't pasture my cows
in that field down there. Now they've been pasturing there for 40
years and it hasn't seem to have caused any harm."
Elgin, a director for the Federation
of Ontario Naturalists, said that
the northern Bruce and an area of
the western end of Manitoulin
were considered for a national
park to represent the western Great
Lakes region. The Bruce was
selected because it is already 50 per
cent government owned, mostly by
the province, and is more accessi-
ble year-round. Other national
parks in the region, such as the
Georgian Bay Islands and the off-
shore islands national parks were
considered too small to adequately
represent or maintain the natural
ecological environment.
Bob Day, superintendent of the
Georgian Bay Islands National
Park and co-ordinator of the
Bruce Park study, said that a ma-
jor advantage of the new park
SEPTEMBER 1986 13