Nova Scotia has so many beautiful lakes. Some of them are lined with cottages. In Cape Breton family cottages are called “bungalows”. Other lakes are in wilderness areas and may hide traditional camping spots known to a few fishermen, hunters and back-country campers.
I camped out last weekend next to the cottage of friends on Lake George, on the South Mountain near Aylesford, in the Annapolis Valley. We swam and kayaked and wished we had a little sailboat there because it was windy. We hung out and talked and read books and ate. When it was cold we lit a fire. We grabbed the last bit of summer. That’s what cottages are about.
J.D. Irving Ltd. is selling off vast holdings of land in southwestern Nova Scotia that it has been logging. “Professional forestry management” is what they’ve been doing there, and apparently it’s not worthwhile for them to continue.
170,000 acres of JD Irving lands that are up for saleThe lands include whole lakes and lake systems, rivers, watersheds and huge tracts of forest land. It’s near Kejimkujik National Park and the Tobiatic Wilderness Area, where you can canoe and portage from lake to lake, meeting only a few fishermen along the way. It’s another world back there, and it’s all to easy to ignore what’s going on there.
“Buy Back Nova Scotia” is a group that aims to save the 170,000 acres of land that’s up for sale and prevent them from falling into private hands and being hidden behind No Trespassing signs. Here’s the map (right) showing the lands concerned.
Below, there’s a Google Map of the area south of Digby and the Bear River Reserve. See the long, straight, engineered logging roads built for the sole purpose of getting the logs out, as well as the clearcuts. Use the + button to zoom in further, and you will get to more detailed aerial photos showing the effects of logging.
