How dry has it been?

down the Mersey River, because the river dries up and rocks are too hard on the boats.

This year that restriction went started in June.

Paddlers can still get about two kilometres up stream from Jake’s Landing, but after that the Mersey is mostly rocks.

Peter Rogers used to operate the canoe rental shop and has been coming to the park since 1983.

“I’ve never seen anything drier than this year,” he says. “Every river you go to, there’s not enough to even float a canoe, you couldn’t even walk your canoe through any of the rivers.”

In Fairy Bay, Parks Canada guides show visitors petroglyphs on an outcropping of slate that juts out into the lake. The guides normally have to wait until August to see the caribou petroglyph but this year the low water revealed the petroglyph in June. The guides are seeing parts of the slate outcropping they have never seen before.

Reg Baird has been exploring Keji and the woods and waterways around it for 75 years.

“I was at Seven Mile Brook when I was five or six,” he says. “Now I haven’t been to Keji for a week but I remember one year it was as low as this. It was serious. The only difference at that time there was no forest fire and so maybe it wasn’t common knowledge, no one was talking about it outside of this area.”

Chris McCarthy, the resource conservation manager at Kejimkujik National Park, says they have data loggers in bodies of water throughout the park.

“We will be able to measure this aberration and then see its effect on wildlife and tree growth,” he said.

McCarthy isn’t sure but he suggests loons might do better because fish end up concentrated in smaller pools.

One thing McCarthy has noticed casually is fewer insects than usual.

“Take a look around the park and you’ll see the oak leaves look marvellous. There’s two insects that attack the leaves, the oak leaf miner and the oak leaf roller - this is the lowest number of bugs I’ve ever seen here,” said McCarthy.