Quebec’s Dumoine River watershed faces the future

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QUEBEC’S DUMOINE RIVER WATERSHED FACES THE FUTURE Outdoorsman Wally Schaber explains why this remote wilderness deserves protection

BY KATHARINE FLETCHER

Chelsea, Que. resident Wally Schaber has written The Last of the Wild Rivers, an account of the Dumoine River, an undammed, hence “wild” river roughly 200 kilometres up the mighty Ottawa from Ottawa-Gatineau.

Schaber’s book (published by Burnstown Publishing) reflects his passion for the human history of the Dumoine and its watershed of 5,380 square kilometres. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) calls it the “largest area of unfragmented southern boreal forest in Quebec.”

Because Schaber has paddled and explored the Dumoine for the better part of 50 years, we sat down for an interview so he could describe the river’s watershed and outline what is needed to conserve it.

Katharine Fletcher: Why did you write this book?

Wally Schaber: As a teenager, I found the stories of the Algonquin, coureur des bois, voyageurs and lumbermen full of adventure, bravado and camaraderie with unique Canadian overtones. My first trips down the Dumoine brought that history to life and I began collecting oral and written stories of the gateway village of Des Joachims and the entire watershed. Everything came together as The Last of the Wild Rivers.

KF: Can you paint us a picture of the Dumoine’s landscape?

The Last of the Wild Rivers: The Past, Present, and

Future of the Rivière du Moine Watershed [ISBN], by Wallace A. Schaber, is published by Burnstown Publishing House, Burnstown, Ontario, and retails for $30.

WS: When starting your canoe trip in La Vérendrye Park, the dry area you’d cross through into the Dumoine watershed is called “la Vérendrye Hillocks” – large sand and gravel deposits, and a boreal forest dominated by birch and spruce. Lac Dumoine itself is 81 square kilometres, part of the Dumoine Plateau, which is 11 per cent water, six per cent wetlands, with the rest being a beautiful landscape where rock cliffs jut from rolling hills and shorelines of granite or sand. All is covered in a mixed forest of birch, maple, oak, hemlock, and the “green gold” of the 19th century: red and white pine.

The Dumoine descends through an elevation of 152.4 metres in waterfalls and runnable rapids as it winds its way off the plateau to the Ottawa River. For 150 years lumbermen cut pockets of this beautiful forest and floated the best timber down to

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the mills at Ottawa’s Chaudière Falls. For three decades now the Dumoine forest has been spared from logging by as an “Aquatic Preserve,” a designation by the Quebec provincial cabinet that expires in 2020. Today the untrained eye enjoys a full and varied fores t landscape.

KF: Why is the preservation this undammed river’s watershed so important?

WS: Aside from the obvious “why kill the last passenger pigeon because they’re not making any more,” there is academic reasoning. For the past 10 years Quebec civil servants have been ranking the province’s endangered species’ habitats, existing preserved areas, human impact, natural beauty, and cultural preservation. By a large margin, the Dumoine scored highest in all categories.

KF: Is there any legal protection now for the Dumoine?

WS: The Quebec Government hosted a series of open houses to make sure there was is more local support for a preserve than pressure to develop a mine, logging, hydro or large commercial development. Other aquatic reserves in Quebec have been in existence for five to 10 years. None have staff for specific tasks or a budget for them. It is more a designation that conservation and municipal officials monitor until a future government changes the status or decides to keep it.

KF: Which governmental and organizational groups help protect the Dumoine?

WS: Pontiac is one of the poorest areas in Quebec. The Dumoine is the boundary between Temiscamingue and Pontiac County. The closest community in Temiscamingue is Kipawa, a four-hour drive away from the river by skidoo or truck over bush roads. So Temiscamingue politicians get few votes to protect a watershed so distant from where voters live.

On the Pontiac side of the river, Liberal MLA André Fortin and federal Liberal MP Will Amos want good long-term jobs for their constituents, especially since forestry faces weak markets. Tourism is one of the few areas in the Pontiac with economic potential. A protected Dumoine watershed could be a foundation for tourism and all types of wilderness recreation.

But conservation politics are complicated. It would be a rare feat to get a federal national park created in Quebec. However, some of us have a beautiful dream: a provincial/federal/First Nations “Park of the Algonquins” protecting Ottawa River tributaries from their headwaters down to the Quebec shoreline.

KF: What can ordinary people do to protect the Dumoine?

WS: Express support for this dream. Political parties pay attention to blogs, Facebook posts, tweets, printed articles, and other media messages. Say what you feel some place, any place, every place! I’ve launched a Facebook page Friends of Rivière du Moine to get a few projects going – we can’t wait for government action and grants. We need to improve our behaviour on the trail because of the traffic on the trail. This summer a thousand canoeists will go to the toilet 5,000 times, throw out the remains of 5,000 meals in the river or fire pit, wash 5,000 dishes, leave 5,000 Royalex or fibreglass scrapes on rocks from canoes, burn 5,000 logs to cook dinner or tell stories around, and leave 500,000 footsteps.

KF: Anything else?

WS: Shop locally. Skidoos riders, hunters, fishers, ATVers and motorized campers leave a much bigger economic footprint on the local Quebec economy than canoeists, so when their voices argue for change, local and regional politicians and residents listen. So get canoe rental, gas, beer, shuttle, overnight campsite, road permits, parking, even poutine in Des Joachims. This helps maintain a respected voice at the table when the future of the Dumoine watershed is being planned.

KF: Thank you Wally. I hope our readers will check out this treasure.

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