Volume 55, Number 1
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OFFICIAL ALGONQUIN PARK PUBLICATION NEW PUBLICATIONS Lake Opeongo Ice-out Dates Since 1964 Showing Trend Lake Opeongo Ice-out Dates Since 1964 Showing Trend Vol. 55, No. 1 • June 1, 2014 Butterflies of Algonquin Provincial Park May 15 May 15 – latest date In Algonquin, 88 butterfly species have been identified representing most of the North American butterfly families. The new 2013 May 10 edition includes the Checklist and Seasonal Status of the Butterflies BUTTERFLIES May 5 The of Algonquin Provincial Park. $4.95 OFFICIAL A LGONQUIN PARK PUBLICATION ONLY 95 $4. April 30 ALGONQUIN PARK BUTTERFLY CHECKLIST NOW INCLUDED of Algonquin Provincial Park April 25 Birds of Algonquin Provincial Park Over 50 years of careful data-keeping on the 279 bird species that April 20 aven A Natural and Cultural History Digest have been recorded in Algonquin has uncovered some significant April 15 ecological trends in Algonquin’s bird populations, resulting in a BIRDS special 5-page section in this new edition. April 10 R SHOP ONLINE: algonquinpark.on.ca April 5 East Side Story: A Celebration of Algonquin Provincial Park by Rory MacKay Available at the Algonquin Visitor Centre Bookstore, the East Gate and West Gate March 31 March 29 – earliest date Try to imagine Algon- It has often been said that Year 1964 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 2000 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 quin Park without the there are two Algonquin mighty rapids and wide Parks: the developed area Moose Viewing Tips Compiled by Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources: Algonquin Fisheries Assessment Unit 2014 valley of the Petawawa along the Frank MacDougall In spring, Moose can be seen regularly along River below Lake Travers, Parkway/Highway 60 cor- Highway 60, attracted to the slightly salty Be FishingSmart . without the sandy beaches ridor; and the much less water left in roadside ditches after winter road Remin d ers while fishing in Algon quin: of Grand Lake, without visited and less accessible maintenance. Unfortunately, the proximity of the cliffs of the Barron Park interior. In fact there Moose to Highway 60 can create a serious hazard • Trout fishing season opens April 26, 2014. Canyon, and without the 1914 - are three Algonquin Parks; for motorists. Stay alert as Moose can be on No live baitfish are permitted. Little Bonnechere trails the two already mentioned the road or standing in the ditches and are often • No fishing is permitted within 100 m of a water control dam. and the Eastern Pines and the much different “East surprisingly hard to see. Each year too many • Backpacking Trail. The Side,” the story of which we No fishing within 300 metres down stream years Moose and other wildlife are killed in vehicle • Algonquin Park of 1913, relate here. collisions. Reduce your speed (especially at of Lake Opeongo’s Annie Bay dam. with its twenty townships The forests of the East night) and help save the lives of Algonquin Park’s PETER FERGUSON Daily catch and possession limit for Lake Trout • and an area of about a Side are different from those Moose and possibly even your own. Bull Moose in spring. is 2 per person (1 per person with a 100 CONEYBEARE HOWARD million acres, was an on the west side of the Park. If you see a Moose, pull safely off the traveled Conservation Licence). impressive territory, but Being lower in elevation the portion of the road and turn on your hazard lights to warn other drivers. If possible, Daily catch and possession limit for trout is 5 per person, no more than two Algonquin’s East Side park in a nearby parking lot. If drivers flash their vehicle headlights at you in • the addition of six full climate is warmer, receiving of which can be Lake Trout (2 per person with not more than one Lake Trout, townships and another on average 21 more frost- Algonquin Park, there’s a good chance a Moose is ahead or maybe even a “Moose with a Conservation Licence). Jam” (a traffic jam caused by Moose watchers). If you exit the vehicle, watch for four half-townships on the east side of the Park free days a year. It is also drier because as Be aware some lakes have slot limits. Check the Algonquin Information traffic and ensure you keep a safe and respectful distance from wildlife. • a century ago in 1914 is well worth celebrating. the prevailing westerly winds rise above the Guide for a list. That addition of land brought the Park uplands to the west they cool and drop much Moose are large and powerful animals. Please show them respect. • Worms are not native to Algonquin and remaining worms should be taken home closer to being an area of “between of the moisture they contain as snow or or thrown in the trash – not on the ground! twenty and thirty townships,” which rain, leaving the “east side” in a partial WINTER TICK IN SPRING * refer to the Ontario Recreational Fishing Regulations Summary for complete details Clerk of Forestry Robert Phipps rain shadow. Also, water drainage The winter tick is one of many parasites that affect moose. The aggressive had proposed as a Forest Reserve in through the sandy soils in the east is engorgement of female winter ticks causes moose to obsessively groom, scratch The Visitor Centre offers FREE WiFi internet access 1884. Legislation passed in 1910 had more rapid than in the richer soils of with their hind hooves, and rub furiously against trees to relieve the irritation. …and while there, don’t forget to check out The Friends of Algonquin Park permitted additions of lands adjacent glacial till to the west. The sands and deep This vigorous grooming results in damage to their protective coat of hair Bookstore and Nature Shop, or the Sunday Creek Café. to the Park by Provincial Cabinet alone, river channels of the Petawawa and Barron leading to premature winter hair loss. thus streamlining acquisitions. rivers are remnants of the major melt-water algonquinpark.on.ca MNR# 4575 3K P.R. 06 01 14 ISSN 0701-6972 (print) ISSN 1927-8624 (online) © Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2014 drainage system that flowed there about nine grounds of the Algonquin People changed and wood chips, branches and other debris in their farm. Supplies may also have been carried that patrolled in the summer commonplace interruptions thousand years ago as a a result of the retreat diminished as the loggers advanced. wake that became fuel for fires, both natural way to support the men constructing a new rail of 1916 was also an artist. to the sleep of campers, until of the massive glaciers that once covered much Back then, there was no Sand Lake Gate and human-caused. As was the case with the line across the east and north side of the Park. Stationed at Achray in a that section of the Canadian of Canada. and no road midway between the Petawawa townships included in the Algonquin Park of Opened in 1915, it was part of the Canadian cabin dubbed the “Out-Side- National Railway line closed and the Barron rivers as today, at 1893, the poor quality of the soil that remained in Northern Railway, a transcontinental route to In,” Tom Thomson painted in 1995. A station building least until the early 1950s. Public these East Side townships prevented settlement compete with the Canadian Pacific Railway. many sketches of the east came and went, as did various access to Achray was only by by all but a very few hardy souls. side landscape, including one maintenance buildings. The train until 1963. By no means A few squatters (settlers without deeds) at Grand Lake from which stone house (completed in was the area “roadless” during the cleared small farms along the Bonnechere Road his famous canvas “The Jack the 1940s) and the log cabin Nineteenth Century. Each lumber in the 1870s. A rail route had been surveyed Pine” was painted. in which Tom Thomson company constructed “tote roads” through the Bonnechere Valley and then west The rugged landscape that stayed are physical reminders and “portage roads” through the and north to Kioshkokwi Lake, there to join Thomson painted is the same of times past. Interior forest, to bring in supplies and with the Canadian Pacific Railway. The railway landscape that we see today, campsites became the drive- “winter roads” over which horse- was constructed along the Ottawa River rather with the scrubby second- in campground. Despite drawn sleighs carried timbers and than along the Bonnechere route. Although growth forests of 1914 having the comings and goings of ALGONQUIN PARK ARCHIVES: RS-A-1 ALGONQUIN PARK ALGONQUIN PARK ARCHIVES: V.B. GRAY ARCHIVES: V.B. ALGONQUIN PARK logs to the waterways. As early as the prosperity anticipated by settlement near grown into timber that still people, the landscape has Fishing party loading canoes on train at Achray in 1925. 1852 a road extended through the a railroad did not materialize, squatters Paddy Achray train station. supports the local economy. remained remarkably wild. Exactly when humans arrived on the scene valley of the Bonnechere River, connecting Garvey, Dennis McGuey, James McIntyre, and Rangers were assigned to the new section of The University of Toronto Michael Runtz, naturalist is uncertain. Archaeological evidence tells Eganville with the lumber company depot farms Ronald McDonald remained on their farms. park to watch for poachers, and especially to held student forestry camps AND ARCHIVES CANADA: 4203786 LIBRARY and author of The Explorer’s Artist Tom Thomson fishing, c. 1915. us that for thousands of years the Algonquin at Basin Depot near Basin Lake, on the upper They grew a few crops, raised a few sheep and patrol the new rail line and the men working at Achray, from 1924 to 1935.