Stretch your legs in Arnprior’s outback Hiking the Nopiming Game Preserve

BY HARRY GALLON

CHARLES MACNAMARA had a way with animals and people.

As he hiked the forest adjacent to Marshall’s Bay on the upper Ottawa River in the early1900s, he visualized a living, breathing sanctuary for future generations. Equipped with his camera, field glasses, sketchpad, notebook, hot coffee and lunch, Macnamara scoured the woods for the life forms that fed the greater whole. He documented the breath and bud of the forest, a living organism shaped through natural change and inevitable succession.

Macnamara’s October 4, 1925 journal entry reads, “The leaves are just beginning to change colour. The green is fading to yellow, and a maple here and there is turning to scarlet. There is scarcely any air moving down here, but in the sky, fleets of small white clouds are sailing up from the west. It makes me feel small but gives me a sense of protection.”

Macnamara shared his vision with local landowners, and with their support in his back pocket, lobbied the Ontario government to protect what gave him a sense of protection.

On December 22, 1920, the lands were declared a game sanctuary.

The Crown Game Preserve stretched to the north bounded by the Mississippi and Ottawa Rivers, to the east by the line between lots 22 and 23 on the 5 th concession in Fitzroy Township, to the west by the Madawaska River and to the south by the Canadian National Railway. The lands remain a game sanctuary to this day, and it is one of only a handful in Ontario located on private land.

Macnamara named the sanctuary “Nopiming,” an Ojibwa term for “in the woods.”

The Macnamara Nature Trail, located on the eastern edge of the town of Arnprior, is the gateway to the Nopiming. The interpretive trail is 4.5 kilometres in length and maintained by the Macnamara Field Naturalist Club (MFNC). Beyond the maintained trails are many kilometres of stone, wood, foliage, soil and animal life undisturbed by the human hand. With the exception of a cluster of homes and cottages between Pocket Bay to the east and Indian Point to the west, nature has been left to evolve on its own.

“I’ve always felt at home in a natural setting, and this is the perfect place,” says Maryanne Koot of Arnprior, a member of the MFNC who has hiked the Nopiming for 15 years. “Being here gives me peace of mind, but it is never dull in the forest. I love seeing what stage of growth plants are in, what’s blooming and what’s in bud.”

I tighten up my well-worn hiking boots and stretch out my limbs. It is a beautiful mid-May morning. The sun is bright, but the air is cold. I hoist my backpack, weighed down by my camera, notepad and lunch. Macnamara would be proud.

I feel the solid rock beneath my boots. The flora and fauna of the Nopiming share a rich existence on a scant layer of soil. The sanctuary is anchored by the Canadian Shield, where billions of years ago, heat and pressure transformed the existing rocks into the metamorphic rocks found here today. Exposed escarpments of Precambrian marble mark the trail.

High above the forest floor waves the tree canopy, fighting for species domination and succession. White ash, butternut hickory, large-tooth aspen, eastern hemlock, white pine, white birch, mountain maple, striped maple and sugar maple all take breath – and space – where they can.

Between the rocky floor and leafy ceiling is a rich and interdependent tapestry of plant and animal. A slow ascent brings me to Stop #4 on the trail, where a creek flows into Goodwin Bay on the Ottawa River. Beavers have widened and deepened the channel and a small pond upstream contains a beaver lodge.

Wildflowers bud along the edge of the creek: blue vervain, boneset, swamp milkweed, Joe-Pye weed, jewelweed and purple loosestrife are beginning to bloom.

I ascend the trail and follow the boardwalk to a lookout tower. A marsh spreads out before me where yellow bullhead lilies grow during the summer months. Shrubs and small trees are creeping into the stagnant waters and the marsh will eventually become a swamp forest in future generations. Succession never rests.

A small peninsula extends into the water. An abandoned two-room shanty is rotting to ruin on the narrow strip of land. The empty windows, the eyes of the structure, must have afforded a fabulous view to the occupants at one time: to the south is the marsh and to the north is Goodwin’s Bay and the open waters of Lac des Chats.

I lunch at Stop #12, the most western edge of the maintained trail. I refuel with coffee, a peach, ginger cookies and two cheese, lettuce and onion sandwiches — a Macnamara hiking staple.

At one time, this was a field owned by the McLachlin Lumber Company. The property, still referred to as the Brown Farm, was abandoned more than

GETTING THERE

The Nopiming Game Preserve is located 25 minutes west of the Corel Centre in the town of Arnprior. Take the Arnprior exit off Highway 417, turn right at the stop sign, turn left on Madawaska Boulevard, drive one kilometre, turn right on McNab Drive and look for McLachlin Trail parking lot on the right side.

PHOTO BY HARRY GALLON

50 years ago and left to the dictates of nature. A mini-forest of staghorn sumac has taken over, but they are aging and few seedlings are growing to replace them.

Sugar maples are encroaching on the stand. Once established, sugar maples usually dominate a forest and they support birds like red-eyed vireos, eastern woodpeckers and scarlet tanagers. Many other species cycle through the year in the Nopiming, including pileated woodpecker, wood duck, barred owl, eastern screech owl, great crested flycatcher and white-breasted nuthatch.

I crest the plateau at Stop #18. Some major force has removed the original species, white pine, from this area. Perhaps it was fire, or human hands and the long arm of logging.

I descend down the trail and loop back to the main trail where ferns grow to the sides. Abandoned trails and roads are filled in and grown over with the daisy-leaved grape fern. Nopiming mammals range in size from the tiny deer mouse and flying squirrels to rabbits, raccoons, porcupines, foxes and white-tailed deer. They find food and shelter on the forest floor and among the rotting trees that feed the cycle of natural regeneration.

Back at Stop #4, I rest at an abandoned lime kiln. It was built by the McLachlin Lumber Company in the mid- to late-1800s and was likely last used more than a century ago. The limestone structure is a crumbling testament to natural (and inevitable) succession. What man can mark, nature can erase.

Natural change ends at the parking lot and kiosk desk. My legs and feet remember the climbs and descents over ancient stone. I’m flushed and the air is sharp in my lungs. I’m invigorated, awake and aware of the living and breathing whole that I am part of. It’s good to be one.

The preserve and sanctuary is nature in action, succeeding, as it should. Strap on your boots and become a piece of the action.

Hike at your own pace. Harry Gallon is a resident of Antrim who works as a freelance writer, editor and photographer. He enjoys camping, fishing, canoeing and biking with his two boys.

OTTAWA RIVERKEEPER SEEKS FRESH BLOOD TO MONITOR ECOLOGY

BY MEREDITH BROWN, OTTAWA RIVERKEEPER

WHAT DO YOU SEE when you look into the Ottawa River?

Perhaps you see the perfect fishing hole or a source for drinking water. Maybe you see a cool pool for a refreshing summer swim, the ideal paddling route or just an abandoned shopping cart?

When I’m on the water, I imagine the river 200 years ago, with towering red and white pines along its shores and thundering rapids. Presently, in many sections I see extensive shoreline alterations, concrete, treeless gaps, pipes spouting waste, dammed rapids and dwindling wetlands. These blights are at variance with the impressive biodiversity of migrating birds, sturgeon, reptiles and mighty muskellunge.

I imagine the future. Will my daughter be able to swim in the river and eat its fish without the risk of unsafe mercury or dioxin levels?

With Ottawa Riverkeeper on the job, we hope the future is secure. We act to protect the ecological integrity of the river that flows through us. We want future generations to have safe access to the river for swimming, fishing and drinking.

Riverkeeper is on the job to raise questions and speak for the river. Right now we are looking at a proposal to build a new boat bypass in an ecologically sensitive area that filters drinking water and harbours spawning fish. We advocate that a perfectly good alternative for moving boats around the Chats Fall Dam already exists.

Why do we continue to pour raw sewage into the river when the technology exists to prevent it? Why is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited allowed to store radioactive and toxic waste in shallow trenches near the Ottawa River? We should learn from the notable plume of radioactive waste moving into the river from its Chalk River Nuclear Facilities.

Ottawa Riverkeeper is acting on these issues and others because the river needs our help. Our voice is only as strong as our membership. If you believe in the preservation of the Ottawa River and its many tributaries, you can help. Become a member of Ottawa Riverkeeper by visiting our web site at www.ottawariverkeeper.ca. Consider volunteering, or sign up for our free e-newsletter and find out what you can do to make a difference.