Sandhills saved
NCC acquires portion of land that was in Outlon family for more than 100 years
The Nature Conservancy of Canada offered up a facsimile of its latest acquisition Friday morning, inviting a gathering inside the Northport Boatshop Restaurant to shift its gaze to the lighthouse on the Cascumpec Sandhills, at the mouth of Alberton Harbour.
NCC held a reception to announce its acquisition of the southern third of the sandhills, hidden from view from the restaurant by Oulton’s Island. The 150-acre property was donated to the NCC by Alberton native and Halifax resident Ian Oulton.
The land had been in the Oulton family for more than 100
years. Oulton’s great-grandfather helped pioneer Prince Edward Island’s silver fox industry
on Oulton’s Island around the start of the 20th century. The family owned Oulton’s Island and some of the sandhills. Ian Oulton’s father was born on Oulton’s Island in 1911. By the 1920s, however, the family had settled in Alberton, thus ending the rowboat trips to mainland P.E.I.
Ian Oulton, 74, gained ownership of some of the sandhills after his father died. On Friday he admitted he always wanted to do something with the property but never found the time. He planned to camp there from time to time but admits he might have spent all of two nights there.
Donating the property to the NCC seemed like the right thing to do, he acknowledged. To sell it and have somebody develop it now, he said, would ruin the natural area.
“It’s something I can still feel good about. I can still go visit, if I ever find the time.”
The Nature Conservancy of Canada permits people to visit the property.
NCC program director for P.E.I., Julie Vasseur, liked Oulton’s description of the process to transfer ownership of the property to the NCC: lengthy and easy.
It’s the shifting nature of the sandhills that makes the transaction
lengthy, she explained, as boundaries and deeds have to be researched and sometimes the landmarks that described the boundaries no longer exist.
Certainly, in the case of the portion of the sandhills that Oulton donated, the southern boundary was said to be the entrance to Goose Harbour. That entrance no longer exists as the opening is now completely closed over with sand dunes.
Although the land was donated, the NCC relied on $47,000 in grants from the federal government through its Natural Areas Conservation Program and the Ecological Gifts Program to cover survey costs.
Vasseur said the NCC will organize a cleanup of its sandhills property either this fall or next summer.