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Proposed Herring Cove Backlands Wilderness AreaSize & LocationThe proposed Wilderness Area consists of two parcels of public land. The smaller parcel, about 500 hectares, is nestled between the Herring Cove and Purcells Cove roads just outside the city of Halifax. The larger property, approximately 2,800 hectares, sits just west of the Herring Cove Rd.
Natural Description
Granite is the dominant rock of the Backlands. It is rugged and unyielding, rising in exposed barren knolls and ridges, offering spectacular views of the lowlands to the south and west, and the ocean beyond. To the north and east, one views the urban world left behind. Glaciers shaped these lands - scouring and scraping, robbing the highland of precious soil, plucking out great boulders and leaving depressions in their wake. The ice dammed streams with debris, creating general mayhem with once tidy drainages. Today, water and peaty sediment fill the glacier-quarried depressions as lakes, ponds, marshes and bogs, and attract both wildlife and people to the Backlands. Numerous trails and footpaths traverse the landscape, leading away from the lush lowland stream valleys and marshy lake shores upward through mixed-wood forested slopes to the fragile, Jack Pine barrens atop the granite ridges. Diversity of habitats contributes to diversity of wildlife. Deer are common throughout the area, as are rabbits and other small mammals and their predators. The lakes and ponds support a healthy black duck population, loon, and beaver. Song birds inhabit the woodlands and marshes. The wetlands nurture amphibians, insects and collect and cleanse the water that moves through them. People come, as they always have, to enjoy and participate in this celebration of nature persisting just beyond their doorstep. Cultural SignificanceIn the not so distant past these rugged lands of granite barrens, lakes and ponds, streams, bogs and forest vales provided local families with fish and game, wild berries, and spruce saplings for lobster traps. Even today these traditions continue. 
But perhaps more significantly, these lands now connect the later generations with their rural heritage as families continue to fish the runs and hike and explore the rugged beauty of their wilderness backyard. But 'locals' aren't the only ones who appreciate the beauty and wildlife of this special place. A fifteen minute bus ride from downtown Halifax brings many others to the doorstep of the Backlands. An accessible wilderness - by foot, by bus, by bicycle - no need to use the car: a truly remarkable treasure for any city - a gem to preserve and enjoy. Recreational Opportunities
The McIntosh Run is a beautiful river flowing parallel to Herring Cove road out to the sea. The McIntosh Run Watershed Association has funded a study to create a hiking trail along side the river. Combined with their efforts in the last number of years to clean the Run of shopping carts and tires, the trail building effort would result in top-drawer hiking opportunities minutes outside of Halifax, within the community of Spryfield, assuming the Public land is not sold off to developers. ThreatsOur community backyard wilderness - the Common Land, the Back Land beyond the farms and shore - that is what the Herring Cove Backlands are and always have been to the communities of Spryfield, Williams Lake, Purcell's Cove, Herring Cove, Ketch Harbour, Harrietsfield, and Sambro, just outside of Halifax. 
The fact that this wilderness persists at all is remarkable given the rate and scale of DEVELOPMENT in this region. Urban Halifax wants to expand, and local real estate on the periphery of the Backlands is ripe for development - accessible and cheap. Granite, which limited development for years, now yields easily, if messily, to modern blasting technology. A proposed 200 acre development by the Armoyan Group at Colpitt Lake is a clear indication of what fate the awaits the proposed Wilderness Area if it is not protected. The Province has traded away other public lands in greater Halifax to developers. The same could happen here. The release of this land by the Province to development interests would also undoubtedly accelerate urbanization throughout adjacent private lands. If this land goes, so goes it all. Associated Member Groups
This initiative is supported by the Williams Lake Conservation Company, Wildlands Working Group, Fergusons Cove Residents Association, Herring Cove Rate Payers Association, Royal Canadian Legion Branch 152 (Spryfield), MacIntosh Run Watershed Association, Ketch Harbour Area Residents' Association, and the Spryfield Long Lake Provincial Park Association. Halifax MLA Michele Raymond is also supportive of this initiative. For more information contact the Ketch Harbour Area Residents' Association
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© Nova Scotia Public Lands Coalition, Ecology Action Centre, 2006 |
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