Manitoba Escarpment Photo:Shawn Baker
Duck Mountain Park
Clearcutting Manitoba's Heritage
By Lindy Clubb;
Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Manitoba
Duck Mountain Provincial Park is Manitoba's wilderness at its finest. Part of the Manitoba escarpment, it rises like a green island from the surrounding farmlands. Its 1,250 square kilometers are crossed by only two roads. The park is traversed and drained by rivers, creeks and valleys, in a mixed wood setting. Last week I watched a great blue heron lift off from the spring run-off in the Favel River, a spectacular contrast to the raptors floating overhead. A profusion of colorful undergrowth supplied food and shelter for animals in a landscape textured with granite, grasses and hillsides.
Unfortunately, while I played in the woods, I couldn't forget that 80% of this magnificent park is slated for logging. The scale of logging will triple now that Louisiana Pacific is buying hardwoods for its oriented strand board plant in nearby Minitonis. Softwoods go to the Repap pulp mill north of the park, and to ten small sawmills in Swan River.
Delimber Photo:Chris Bruun
Local people have fought for ten years to protect sensitive areas like mineral licks, calving grounds for moose and elk, and several of the more spectacular valleys and ridges. All they have won are a few small backcountry additions to the park, which the province's new Parks System Plan spares from logging. Not surprisingly, the terrain in these areas is too steep for logging equipment.
The rest is well worth saving. To the south the park begins with the highest elevation in Manitoba, the 500 metre Raldy Mountain. In these cool, moist heights, trees give dense canopy cover to violets, bunchberry, snowberry, sarsaparilla, wintergreen, hazel, roses, mosses, and lichens.
Duck Mountain's forests host the largest neo-tropical bird population in North America, including vireos, warblers, siskins, and fly catchers, as well as a great variety of wetland bird communities. Habitat loss is reducing both of these populations. The park is also home to black bears, cougars, lynx, deer, moose, elk, beaver, foxes, and wolves to name a few.
Manitoba's public remains, for the most part, blissfully unaware of the policy of cutting in natural parks.
Three Toed Woodpecker Photo:Edgar T.Jones
Black-throated green warbler Photo:Jim Butler
Logging is taking place all around the park's borders. Within Louisiana Pacific's huge allocation in the surrounding Duck and Porcupine Forests, only 2% of the wildlife habitat is protected. Unregulated logging on private lands is also seriously impacting habitat, just as it is in Alberta. A land use study and presentation to students in Swan River revealed that almost everyone had used the park, and wanted it protected, but didn't realize it is being logged. Canadian Wildlife Service researcher Keith Hobson has given the provincial and federal Environment departments eloquent evidence of the need for old growth and snags for migrant birds and cavity nesters. Dan Soprovich, a wildlife biologist and local resident, states that plenty of wood exists outside of the park, and it is only greed and prior allocations which drive the logging within Duck Mountain Park boundaries.
Beaver Photo:Chris Bruun
Duck Mountain Provincial Park is crucial for the survival of numerous species of birds, animal and plants. The park provides an important source of income for local guides and outfitters, and subsistence food for nearby native communities. Duck Mountain Park is still a valuable example of what existed before Manitoba's government sold off our communal resources behind closed doors, at bargain basement prices. But if it continues to be a park in name only, all these values will disappear. We want Duck Mountain Provincial Park preserved. After all, we are only borrowing it from our children.
