Barb Hill-Taylor of East Port L’Hebert was at a community wildfire preparedness day on Tuesday, organized by Parks Canada. (Rick Conrad)

When last spring’s wildfires were consuming thousands of hectares around Barrington in southwestern Nova Scotia, Barb Hill-Taylor was about 90 kilometres away at her home in East Port L’Hebert.

“We have only one exit from our peninsula,” she said Tuesday, “and I was concerned about that and also the closeness of the Barrington fire, you could see the plume.”

The fires didn’t get close enough to threaten Hill-Taylor’s house, but they still left a lasting impression. Even though her house is made of concrete with a metal roof, she was still concerned enough that after it was all over, she and her neighbours asked the province’s wildfire prevention officer to visit their area. The officer gave her and her neighbours tips on how to make their properties more wildfire resilient.

“It was great. I learned a lot. We spent about two hours driving around the peninsulas and she would point out things that were issues for people to look at. It was a really worthwhile exercise. The snag is that people have to act on the recommendations now and cut trees. It’s difficult because you spend a lot of time doing your landscaping.”

Hill-Taylor was one of the local residents at Kejimkujik National Park Seaside in Port Joli on Tuesday for a wildfire community preparedness day.

Organized by Parks Canada, Tuesday’s event also included officials from Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources and Renewables and the Liverpool Fire Department.

They were there to educate people on how to make their property a little safer from fires. Parks Canada officials also laid out many of the measures they have taken at the park to help mitigate the spread of wildfires, which mirrored the things people can do on their own properties.

The fires that started in the Barrington Lake area last May eventually burned more than 23,000 hectares. So far this year, Nova Scotia crews have responded to 27 wildfires around the province.

Cory Isenor, a forestry resource technician with the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, says it’s a lot about common sense.

“It’s looking at the stuff around your home and trying to eliminate anything that could catch fire.”

Isenor advises homeowners to keep grass trimmed and short around your foundations, clean up any brush or leaves from around your home, make sure your decks, patios, gutters and roof are free of leaf and yard waste, and cut back any trees, especially if they’re evergreens, from around your home. He said it’s also important to make sure stacks of firewood are stored as far away from your house as possible.

Officials discussed which building materials are more prone to igniting in case of an outdoor fire. Metal roofing and concrete structures are best. But using non-combustible and fire-rated products can also help.

“The big thing is the distances from the combustible materials around your home,” Isenor said in an interview. “And the biggest thing is what we call the intermediate zone which is touching your house, a couple of metres right around your home, that you may have flower beds or dried wood, fences, anything that could catch and then transfer that over to your home. 

“You want to try to remove any combustible material in that immediate zone: birch bark mulch, firewood piles. Decks are always an area of concern.”

And Isenor said it’s also important, in the event of a wildfire, for people to be ready to shelter in place for 72 hours or to evacuate immediately.

Local resident Nancy Perry said she and her husband already cut back many of the trees on their property after last year’s fires. But she said she came to the event to be better prepared, just in case. 

“I was just interested to find out how we could make some changes at our property to be a little safer if we ever get another fire.”

The wildfire preparedness day was part of FireSmart Canada’s National Wildfire Community Preparedness Day, which was observed on Saturday. Parks Canada officials recommended on Tuesday that people check out the FireSmart Canada website for more tips and a self-assessment of how to protect your home.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Officials are holding a wildfire preparedness event at Keji Seaside in Port Joli on Monday. (Parks Canada)

Parks Canada is holding a community wildfire preparedness session on Tuesday, May 7, at Kejimkujik Seaside Adjunct in Port Joli.

The event goes from 3 to 5 p.m. Officials from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Renewables and the Liverpool Firefighters’ Association will be on hand to give advice on how to make communities more resilient to wildfires.

Parks Canada will also be giving a tour of the recent fire prevention work at Keji Seaside.

It’s part of National Wildfire Community Preparedness Day which is observed on the first Saturday in May. That’s a project of FireSmart Canada, which educates people on how to boost resilience to wildfires. 

Crews in Nova Scotia have already responded to 27 wildfires so far this year. Last May, a blaze that broke out in the Barrington Lake area eventually consumed more than 23,433 hectares.

It’s an outdoor event. It was originally scheduled for Monday. Updates will be posted on the Keji Facebook page.

Queens MLA Kim Masland. (Rick Conrad photo)

The Nova Scotia government has given Parks Canada in mainland Nova Scotia $27,250 to help promote sites like Kejimkujik National Park.

Queens MLA Kim Masland said in a news release that the money is part of the Tourism Digital Content Marketing Initiative. It helps organizations create engaging digital marketing campaigns.

“Kejimkujik is a world-class park that gets thousands of visitors every year. This increased marketing will bring even more tourists to our communities in the future,” Masland said. 

“More tourists means more money for our local businesses. This investment is great news for the residents of Queens County.”

Masland says the funding will help bring even more visitors to Keji and more tourists to shop at Queens County businesses.

A picnic in Kejimkujik. Photo courtesy Parks Canada

If the early bookings are any indication, it’s going to be a busy year at Kejimkujik.

Almost 10,000 campers raced to book their favourite spots at the National Park and Historic Site when the online reservation system opened on March 31, a nine percent increase over last year.

The feat is more remarkable considering Parks Canada rolled out a new online booking system this year, requiring all users to create new accounts.

Visitor Experience Manager at Kejimkujik National Park and Historic Site Sophie Borcoman says Keji is consistently one of the most popular parks in Canada.

“Kejimkujik, every year we have such a loyal fan base of 85 percent repeat visitation who come back year after year, multiple generations,” said Borcoman. “And we’ve for, between Jasper and Banff, as being the most popular site.”

The park, which straddles Queens and Annapolis Counties features a variety of sites for tents trailers and RVs, located near services and washrooms, or in the backcountry, far away from anyone.

In recent years, many roofed accommodations have been added including rustic cabins, oTENTiks and Oasis all within an easy walk of inclusive washrooms.

The washrooms were completely renovated just two years ago to provide a toilet and sink behind a private door in the washroom facilities and private individual showers, making them more inclusive and eliminating the need for traditional separate male and female facilities.

Borcoman says despite the large number of bookings there are still lots of sites available between the May long weekend and the end of October when the park closes.

In fact, the park is offering a new service that will make it easier to book last minute.

Every Tuesday, staff will post how many sites are available in the coming week on their Facebook page, listing unbooked sites as well as any last-minute cancellations.

Borcoman says staff at Kejimkujik are constantly looking for ways to highlight the attributes of the park and historic site and encourages people to visit their web page for dates and times of several special events taking place including an ultra-marathon and the dark-sky weekend.

Kejimkujik also hosts many interpretive programs honouring the Mi’kmaw, the First People of the area.

Visitors can take a guided petroglyph tour, visit a Mi’kmaw encampment or watch and talk to master-builder Todd Labrador as he builds birchbark canoes.

Kejimkujik will open for camping May 19.

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Parks Canada Staff taking measurements of blanding’s turtle with Terranaut Club participants. Photo Courtesy Terranaut Club

A program launched through Parks Canada got young girls into the woods and working on science.

Kejimkujik National Park and Historic site has joined with the Terranaut Club to encourage women and under-represented genders to enter STEM fields.

According to reports, those groups account for just 25 percent of people involved in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics across Canada.

This past summer Parks Canada staff and Terranaut Club teamed up to offer youth aged 9-18 the experience of working on three separate projects mentored by women.

Terranaut Club founder Julia Whidden says you never know what event will spark someone’s passion for learning.

“Sometimes all you need is one really meaningful experience that can change everything for you and open a lot of new doors to careers that maybe you never considered,” said Whidden.

Over three outings the youth and their mentors studied funghi, worked on conservation programs involving piping plovers, sea birds and seals, looked into the impacts of invasive species like chain pickerel and monitored the progress of blanding’s turtles.

Whidden says the association with Keji happened after an executive with Parks Canada heard her being interviewed on the radio and approached her with the thought both groups had something to offer.

Parks Canada Environmental Scientist Megan Gallant was one of the mentors involved in the program.

She says Kejimkujik is the perfect place to introduce youth to STEM.

“We are among a few national parks and systems in the world that have a great system wide ecological integrity monitoring and reporting program,” said Gallant. “So across the country we have more than 700 scientific measures that inform park-specific priorities and guides to restoration action so we certainly do have a lot of exciting and hands-on science and nature experiences to offer youth.”

Gallant says she remembers being a young girl and feeling that the environmental field wasn’t for her based on her gender.

She’s glad to now mentor other girls and show STEM is for everyone.

“I’m so happy, on a personal note, to see programs like this because I would have loved to have these when I was a little girl growing up to kind of reinforce yourself and see other females in the field doing the work that you are very capable of doing.”

Whidden says it’s important for the group to make the experience available to everyone and so they offer a pay what you can model.

The Terranaut Club receives funding from corporate donations, grants and fundraising.

Families are asked to pay what they can so those that can pay a little more help provide an experience for those who maybe can’t afford as much.

Whidden says STEM fields are only going to become more important and the people working to drive technology need to represent everyone.

“It’s essential that they are diverse so that we can make sure that when we’re tackling these problems were tackling them from, you know responsible points of view, diverse points of view,” said Whidden. “Making sure that the challenges that we face, we’re really thinking of outcomes that are going to benefit everyone and not just people who look like we do.”

She expects the mentor program will continue next year is hopeful collaboration between the Terranaut Club and Parks Canada will become a formal partnership.

To learn more about the STEM mentorship programs, head to the Terranaut Club website.

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Screen shot of the path Hurricane Fiona will take as it approaches Nova Scotia. From Environment Canada web page

Department of Natural Resources and Parks Canada officials are taking no chances despite expectations Hurricane Fiona will be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it makes landfall in Nova Scotia,

As Hurricane Fiona bares down on Nova Scotia officials with Parks Canada have decided to temporarily close Kejimkujik Park effective at noon Friday, September 23.

Anyone camping or visiting the site is being asked to leave and no one will be permitted to enter after that time.

The measures include the entire park and historic site as well as Kejimkujik Seaside in Port Joli.

Guests with bookings between Sep 23- 26 will be contacted, their reservations cancelled, and fees fully refunded.

To ensure the safety of all visitors Parks Canada officials say the closure will remain in place until conditions are safe.

The public will be updated on park conditions again on Tuesday, September 27 at noon.

Later Thursday morning the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources followed suit and announced all provincial parks would be closing Friday at noon as well.

Parks will be reopened once officials have assessed any damage and addressed safety concerns.

As of Thursday morning, Environment Canada predicts Hurricane Fiona will transform into a post tropical storm bringing very heavy rain and strong to severe wind gusts beginning Friday afternoon with the heaviest rain and wind peaking overnight into Saturday.

They are advising the public the storm has the potential to produce severe and damaging wind gusts, very high waves and coastal storm surge, and intense rainfall.

Officials from the province’s Emergency Management Office are urging all Nova Scotians to monitor local weather forecasts and be ready for the storm’s arrival by ensuring they have enough food and water for 72 hours and preparing their storm kits.

The basic checklist includes:
— having enough food and water for 72 hours
— monitoring local media outlets for updates
— securing gates, doors and windows
— moving yard furniture and securing trash cans, hanging plants and anything that can be picked up by wind
— checking radio batteries
— filling vehicles with gas and parking them away from trees
— keeping pets inside
— moving any type of watercraft to high ground
— ensuring personal and family safety
— checking on neighbours
— not leaving candles unattended.

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Site Supervisor Jonathan Sheppard at Kejimkujik’s solar array. Photo Parks Canada

Power consumption at Kejimkujik is now as green as its renowned forests.

Since May, the national park and historic site has been generating enough power onsite using solar panels to meet the needs of campers in Jeremy’s Bay campground.

Site Supervisor at Kejimkujik, Jonathan Sheppard says this makes Keji the first park in Canada to go net-zero.

“The power that’s actually consumed by visitors and the number of visitors we have here is actually a hard category of greenhouse gas emissions to reduce because it’s up to individual choices and equipment and gear and stuff,” said Sheppard. “So, the principal for this one, for offsetting it, allows us to generate an equivalent amount of power so that when visitors come here, they know that their experience is powered by the sun and basically it’s a net-zero camping experience.”

Power is not stored at Keji but is sold to Nova Scotia Power and purchased back, creating a net-zero exchange.

Generating over 12,000Kw per month, the 100Kw solar array is made up of 272 photo-voltaic panels and covers a 40 x 60 metre area.

The array is located in a clearing near the front of the park out of view of visitors on the site of a former weather station.

Kejimkujik solar array viewed from above. Photo Parks Canada

Sheppard says the location was chosen after consultation with Mi’kmaq partners.

“They were involved in the archaeology around this project. We did that collaboratively,” said Sheppard. “They were very supportive of the benefits of this project but because we’re also a national historic site that’s designated so because of the Mi’kmaq cultural landscape, they were also interested in making sure that when you came into the park you didn’t see a big piece of infrastructure.”

The solar project was funded through an almost $600,000 Government of Canada investment to support greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts and clean technology.

Sheppard estimates at the rate the array is producing power, that investment will be paid off in 20 years.

And perhaps most importantly, over their projected 35-year lifespan, the panels will be responsible for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by over 3,300 tonnes, the equivalent of taking 1035 cars off the road.

Sheppard says since the pandemic people have sought connection with the outdoors and it’s important to make that experience as enjoyable and green as possible.

“There’s a direct link between the visitor’s experience here in the campground and the knowledge that their experience is powered entirely by the sun,” said Sheppard. “That, for us, provides a really neat connection between a visitor understanding their visit in the context of the larger picture, not only of protecting a national park but the work to mitigate against climate change as well, while they’re here.”

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One of the test holes at Kejimkujik Seaside. Photo Ed Halverson

Parks Canada and the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia are working together to preserve Mi’kmaq heritage before renovations begin at Kejimkujik Seaside Park.

The park has been closed since October 20 to repair infrastructure damage as a result of Hurricane Dorian.

Some trails will be repaired, and others rerouted.

Parks Canada and the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia, as represented by Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn Negotiation Office (KMKNO) along with Boreas Heritage Consultants have planned all aspects of the archaeological dig together to ensure the Mi’kmaq perspective is at the forefront.

KMKNO staff archaeologist Kait MacLean says it’s important to preserve and protect Mi’kmaq heritage.

“One of the ways that we can protect Mi’kmaq heritage is to locate it. We know that Mi’kmaq people were here, we know that Mi’kmaq people would have used this landscape. Being able to protect that heritage before infrastructure goes in is really important to us. The work that we’re doing with Parks Canada allows us to have that Mi’kmaq perspective into how the work is planned and how it is undertaken,” said MacLean.

A 10-person team from Boreas Heritage consultants is digging test holes at five metre intervals along the proposed trails to ensure nothing of significance is being disturbed.

Archaeologists Rebecca Dunham and Kait MacLean at Keji Seaside. Photo Ed Halverson

Parks Canada Terrestrial Archaeologist Rebecca Dunham says construction crews won’t have to wait too long to begin their work.

“Things are moving along pretty quickly. Probably will be another couple of weeks. If something is found though, things change. They’ll be more tested required and that may prolong the actual testing timeline a bit. It will be a few weeks anyway,” said Dunham. “The construction crews will move along as the archaeology is completed. It will be a progressive process.”

MacLean says by working together, Parks Canada and the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia have ended up with what she calls, better archaeology.

“Through this process we’ve found sites in areas where Parks [Canada] previously wouldn’t have necessarily thought were high risk areas or would’ve necessarily looked,” said MacLean. “I think that’s a real positive outcome of this, is that we’ve been able to see real achievements from it. We have found sites that previously would’ve been unrecorded. I think that’s a great success.”

Crews will continue to work on the trails through the end of the year.

Keji Seaside is expected to reopen in January.

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One of the many views along the trails at Kejimkujik Seaside Park. Photo Parks Canada

Anyone looking to enjoy the fall colours at Keji Seaside will be sadly disappointed.

Kejimkujik National Park Seaside will be closed starting Wednesday October 20 to repair damage the park suffered during Hurricane Dorian.

Site Superintendent Jonathan Sheppard says extensive trail washouts and coastal erosion from the 2019 storm has forced Parks Canada to close off the Port Joli Head Trail since it hit.

“For us it just really bought into clear picture the challenges that we face with coastal infrastructure in a time of increased, both frequency and also, intensity, of storms,” said Sheppard.

Kejimkujik received just over $1 million dollars in federal funding last year to help rebuild parts of the inland park and the seaside.

Sheppard estimates the number of visitors to Keji Seaside at between 15 and 20 thousand every year.

He says waiting until after the main tourist season had ended to begin work made sense to lessen the impact on visitors.

It also gave the park time to develop a plan that didn’t just rebuild what was already in place but one that also considers the impact climate changes will have on the visitor experience in years to come.

“We’re not just filling the potholes and putting like with like,” said Sheppard. “We are really looking at what it means to build a climate resilient trail network in a coastal area.”

Sheppard says parts of the trail will be moved further inland to avoid erosion, the routing will shift to avoid some hills, making it more accessible and some areas will be reinforced with rock to keep the trail from being washed away by storms.

This is not the first time part of Kejimkujik has been closed for repair in recent years.

Jeremy’s Bay Campground in the inland park was shut for all of 2020 to refresh facilities and infrastructure that had been used since the 1970s.

Sheppard says during that shut-down, Kejimkujik staff learned it was easier and safer to complete large-scale renovations without visitors around.

Sheppard expects work on Keji Seaside to wrap up near the end of December.

Visitors will once again be welcome to walk the trails and explore the coast early in the new year.

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Front country rustic cabin at Kejimkujik National Park. Photo Parks Canada

Campers looking forward to booking their summer excursions in Canada’s national parks will have to wait until spring to do so.

Parks Canada has announced campsite bookings, which normally open in January have been pushed back to April due to COVID-19.

Visitor Experience Manager at Kejimkujik National Park Sophie Borcoman says they want to give campers flexibility in their planning because of the uncertainty around what the pandemic precautions may look like next year.

“This year, across the country, we’re giving visitors the opportunity to make more informed decisions for their vacation plans for 2021 by not opening the reservation system until April,” said Borcoman.

The pandemic has been a bit a boon to Kejimkujik as people looked for ways to get out of the house.

“We had a lot of people coming out, especially from Halifax, who wanted to have an experience outdoors and be outside, and for many of them, it was the first time for them to experience Keji, this summer,” said Borcoman.

That experience looked different this year as Keji’s main camping area, Jeremy’s Bay, was closed for extensive renovations.

Washrooms, wastewater management and water treatment plants and the accompanying infrastructure that had been in place since the 1970s was torn down, dug up and replaced with modern facilities.

Borcoman says because most of the renos were being done outside, their contractors were able to work through the lockdowns and they’re on track to re-open the campground this spring.

New water treatment facility at Kejimkujik. Photo credit Parks Canada

The number of visitors to Keji was about a third of what the park would normally see in the summer season, but Borcoman is impressed that many people came out to enjoy the national park even without facilities.

“The fact that the front-country campground was closed, it didn’t seem to affect the backcountry at all,” said Borcoman. “So we had really good visitation in our backcountry this season. People had lots of space to do their own thing in a socially distanced way.”

Borcoman said the park will close for the winter but the gates will be open and people can still enjoy the trails for hiking, skiing and snowshoeing.

The reservation system will be open for summer bookings at 8:00am Friday, April 23.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
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