Park fans rejoice at renovations to New Brunswick's wild 'jewel'

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By James Foster
Times & Transcript Staff

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MOUNT CARLETON - New money, new management and a new vision have conspired to pull New Brunswick's wildest of wilderness areas back from the edge of oblivion.

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A helicopter lifts massive timbers to deliver them to the summit of Mount Carleton where they'll be used to renovate the historic fire tower.

Once the provincial park that almost fell prey to a death from a thousand government cuts, Mount Carleton is benefiting from an injection of cash and a renewed focus by the provincial government.

Park manager Jean-Louis Deveau says it's a huge job to rebuild crumbling park infrastructure like roads and buildings, but the work is going on at a great pace. The greater challenge perhaps, Deveau believes, is demonstrating to New Brunswickers what a jewel of a wilderness area they own. That has proven difficult in the past most likely because of the park's remote location, in north-central New Brunswick, just southeast of Saint-Quentin, makes it a long trip for most New Brunswickers to visit there.

"There is a genuine need to make the public realize what they have here, so the public itself will say that there's a need to invest money so that their children and grandchildren can enjoy Mount Carleton, because there's not very many places like this left," Deveau says.

Since the provincial Liberal government came to power, the long-neglected park has been removed from the authority of the Department of Natural Resources (which has nothing to do with parks) and returned to the Department of Tourism. Its budget has grown from $136,000 last year to $509,000 this year, with another $1 million earmarked for park development. While it remains a three-season park, officials expect it to be able to remain open year-round starting in 2009, transforming it into a four-season eco-tourism destination.

But there's a lot of work to be done first, Deveau notes, with a lot done already this year.

"One of our biggest problems was the condition of the roads in the park," he says. "Many of the roads were actually impassible."

About $150,000 has been spent so far gravelling roads on the north and south sides of Nictau Lake and the road to Mount Carleton. Other work is slated for roads leading to the park and other roads inside the park will receive attention later.

The historic fire tower atop Mount Carleton was in a pitiful state, run down by vandals and the fierce weather that frequently attacks the Maritime Provinces' highest peak. Now it's almost totally renovated, with the heavy timbers needed for the job ferried to the top of the mountain by helicopter, "and that was an operation in itself," Deveau says. There is some talk of installing panels on which visitors can inscribe their names as it seems everyone wants to write on the walls when they finally reach the summit.

"It might be one way to deter the problem and it might even help stop people from doing anything even worse."

Loop roads around the park's three campgrounds have also been redone.

The approximately 16 historic log cabins, which harken back to the 1800s and are among the very first hunting and fishing guides' camps in North America, are being raised, their rotting sills replaced and they will be resettled onto concrete pads to prevent further deterioration. The camps are also getting new roofs, windows and doors, and they'll be used for retreats by individuals and corporations. Other ancient camps are being renovated to be used as interpretation centres to teach visitors about the park's aboriginal and forestry history as well as about its abundant wildlife.

Washrooms and kitchen shelters are also being renovated and the park now boasts 24/7 attendants. Officials are contemplating various ways to bring green power to the park, for example through solar panels.

"But the biggest challenge is to get New Brunswickers to realize somehow the true jewel that they have," Deveau says.

The park is the province's largest protected natural areas, comprising about 17,340 hectares of true wilderness, with amenities for visitors like camping and cabins.