Connector acquisition key to Halifax park

An integral puzzle piece in the proposed 3,000-hectare Blue MountainBirch Cove Lakes wilderness park has been secured with the announcement Tuesday of the purchase of the 12-kilometre wild blue connector.

The 220-hectare acquisition by Nova Scotia Nature Trust ensures that more than 2,000 hectares of undeveloped wildlands northwest of Halifax city centre will remain unbroken.

“People are very excited and relieved that it actually happened,” Bonnie Sutherland, executive director of the Nature Trust, said of the land transaction that has been in the works for two years.

The acquisition consists of five lots of land and was part of a $2.8-million nature trust campaign.

The land was acquired from landowners Robin Wilber and Bill Fenton, who agreed to sell and donate the wilderness lots.

Wilber, owner of Elmsdale Lumber, said his father, Jim, and Fenton's dad, Myron, had owned those wilderness properties back more than a half century ago, and ran a sawmill on Maple Lake in Timberlea when he was a kid.

Wilber, now in his early 70s, and Fenton eventually took over the properties and the partners developed some of the Tantallon and Timberlea area for housing in partnership with Raymar Construction.

“That land was slated for forestry and development, and then we got a call from the Nature Trust, asking if we would sell them this piece of land,” said Wilber, adding that it didn't take much convincing for the partners to

go the wilderness preservation route.

Wilber said the maps showed that the province, the municipality and the Nature Trust owned land on both sides of the properties he and Fenton owned.

“This was kind of the last piece of the puzzle to put an absolutely huge, wonderful parkland, wilderness area right next to a major city in North America,” Wilber said.

LIKE CENTRAL PARK

Wilber equates the potential of the wilderness park to Central Park in New York City.

“I’m sure Central Park, when it was formed, was not in the centre of the city, it was probably on the edge, so it’s now in the middle and it didn’t move,” Wilber said. “This park wilderness area will be huge and it will be in the middle of a major city in North America in a few decades time. The value of it today is huge but the true value of it will be very evident in a few decades from now. Halifax will grow around it.”

The vast undeveloped wilderness area lies between Hammonds Plains, Timberlea and Halifax and is buffeted by highways 102 and 103 and Hammonds Plains Road.

The wilderness area encompasses a mosaic of extensive forests, bogs and wetlands, rocky barrens and hills, sparkling rivers and three pristine headwater lakes. The diverse habitats support over 150 species of birds including loons, osprey and woodpeckers, and many species listed on Canada’s Species at Risk Act, including Canada warbler, the olive-sided flycatcher and the common nighthawk.

‘ANOTHER PIECE OF THE PUZZLE’

Pam Lovelace, the recently elected Halifax regional councillor for the Hammonds Plains-st. Margaret district, called Tuesday’s announcement exciting.

“This purchase certainly solidifies the direction that we are going in for Halifax with the broader boundary of the wilderness area,” said Lovelace, who was involved in the formation of the Friends of Blue MountainBirch Cove Lakes Society and later served on its board.

“It’s another piece of the puzzle but it’s a very important piece,” Lovelace said. “That connector ensures that from one end of the wilderness area to the other there is a wildlife connector in that wildlife corridor. That’s essential. In my mind that bigger puzzle includes connectors between all of the wilderness areas in HRM and outside of HRM. That bigger, broader thinking is where we need to get to.”

The wilderness area, with its diversity of wild landscapes and proximity to Halifax, attracts hikers, nature lovers, paddlers, birdwatchers and anglers.

“It’s probably among at least the top 10 urban wilderness parks in Canada, if not the top five,” Sutherland said. “To have that kind of green space on a bus route, 20 minutes from the waterfront of downtown Halifax is pretty phenomenal.”

FINAL PLAN STILL IN WORKS

Final boundaries and type of protected area are still to be determined for the broader Blue Mountain-birch Cove Lakes area but the Nature Trust, community groups, the municipality and the province share a common vision of a large protected urban wildland.

In 2009 and 2015, the province designated two large Crown land blocks as wilderness areas, protecting 1,767 hectares. Then in 2018 and 2019, the municipality purchased and added 210 hectares of private lands.

The newly protected connector property bridges the large gap between these previously protected sections of wildlands, creating a 12-kilometre corridor that is important for wildlife, including the endangered mainland moose.

Sutherland lauded governments and private landowners for their foresight and efforts to protect the land but says there is still “pretty intense urban development encroaching from all sides.”

“There are still several pieces that would be really great additions to the park and to the wilderness area and we are talking to a couple of landowners already so there is reason for hope that more could be coming,” she said. “Between us, the municipality and the province and community groups, we just need to figure out strategies for the remaining pieces.”

A FOR ADVENTURE An aerial view of the Blue Mountain connector.