WESTERN MANITOULIN—As of March 6, the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Mnidoo Mnising Provincial Park (Queen Mum) was established as a Natural Environment Provincial Park.
“As of March 6, the park went into regulation as a Natural Environment Park under the Ontario Parks and Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, the same act which governs the Misery Bay Provincial Park,” stated Will Kershaw, senior management planner for Ontario Parks, northeastern zone, with the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), on Monday. Mr. Kershaw pointed out that one of the aspects of this act is that, “it allows for hunting, which is what we have and want to continue to do, as well snowmobiling on trails as we have continued to do since 1999.”
Mr. Kershaw explained the 6,500 hectares of property takes in the portion owned by the Crown and the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), which has been (up to now) two separate park areas and has now been combined to include both portions.
“Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will be finishing up putting up signs at the Burnt Island area; basically people in the area need to know there is a park in their backyard,” said Mr. Kershaw. “We know when some people think of parks they think of campgrounds. But this park is to be more like Misery Bay park with walking-hiking trails—there will be no infrastructure of any account being erected.”
He said the Misery Bay Nature Reserve had been regulated in 1986, and this was finalized in 1995. “We want to do a long term plan for the Queen Mum property and if approvals are given this will be done this summer. This plan will be similar to the in place for Misery Bay,” said Mr. Kershaw. “It will set a plan of what will happen in the park over the next 20 years.”
“The signs we are putting up state day use only; there is no camping allowed and only authorized vehicles are allowed,” continued Mr. Kershaw. “For instance, we know people that are launching boats on the shoreline of Burnt Island, which won’t be changed, we acknowledge this is a good place to launch a boat and this should continue.”
However, “what we don’t like is ATVs used on the property (except for the annual deer hunt season),” said Mr. Kershaw. “Over the last seven years we have seen an increase of ATVs for drive by use, and they have done damage. We know on one beach there used to be a population of 35 individual rare plants, which is now down to five. The area has been beat up by the ATV users.”
“But we also know ATVs are part of the annual deer hunt and that is why they have been allowed by hunters, we have never had a problem during the hunt season with damage being done,” said Mr. Kershaw. “They don’t camp or go off of the trails.”
Mr. Kershaw further explained the master plan use will be developed and in place this summer, with consultation taking place with local and provincial representatives. “We will be consulting with First Nations, adjacent landowners, the local service and roads boards, Gore Bay, conservation groups, fish and game clubs, and provincial groups. We did receive a lot of good feedback in 2002-2005 during the advisory group meetings. For instance at that time we had proposed camping being allowed and the group said no to this taking place.”
