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Route
Rehabilitation - Whose Responsibility?
By: Richard Munn
This week, I returned home from a five-day trip on the Montreal
River and Sydney Creek, at the north end of Ontario's Temagami
Region. It was a wonderful trip, with diverse scenery,
unseasonably warm temperatures and unexpected isolation.
For the most part, we encountered fairly clean campsites and
portages were in reasonable shape. There were however,
some notable exceptions. A few of the sites we visited
(but didn't stay at) were littered with significant amounts of
trash, signage for portages and sites was inconsistent, and some
portage trails were overgrown and littered with deadfall.
One evening, we were faced with a choice of two campsites
directly opposite each other on the river. We checked them
both out. One was an unattractive, overgrown grassy area
surrounded by an almost unbelievable pile of cans, bottles, used
fire grilles and other trash. The other was a compact but
pleasant site in reasonably good shape. We of course set
up camp at the nicer site.
The dirty, overgrown site across the river had an almost unused
plywood thunder box sitting behind it, and the site we were on
had none. Our group transferred the thunder box over to
our site and spent a bit of time selecting a good location and
digging a hole. It was not an easy task, since the only
digging equipment we had was a small hand trowel from our toilet
kit, and a metal barrel stave we found in the bush behind the
site. The hole size wasn't perfect when we ran out of
energy and time, but we had a serviceable thunder box 'up and
running' that day.
There was not sufficient time to perform a cleanup on the other
site, and in any event, it would have been an immense pile of
garbage to carry with us for the remainder of our trip.
Regrettably, we were forced to leave that site in the same
appalling condition we had found it in.
The conversation around the fire that night turned to the
subject of route maintenance. There was general agreement
among the group that the thunder box installation had not been
an undue hardship; and with the proper supplies and tools the
job would have been easier. Would we be willing to do this
task again? Certainly!
What else could we have done? If our saw had been easily
at hand instead of buried in our equipment pack, we could have
cleared some deadfalls. As it was, we brushed out and
marked one short portage that was well on its way to growing in
and reverting to its natural state. We certainly could
have packed out a lot of garbage had we been close to a disposal
site instead of being three days from 'civilization.'
There is some debate about the need for portage and site
signage, thunder boxes and the like. I don't want to enter
into this debate at this point. Suffice to say that I
believe routes in heavy use areas are appropriate ones for all
of the above. Concentrated human waste is better than
scattered human waste; and clearly marked sites can help prevent
development of new 'temporary' sites along a route.
It's not a black and white issue, but if we operate under the
premise that it is desirable to install thunder boxes, signage
and other 'amenities,' on well-used sites, then who should be
doing this work?
Canadians are famous for their habit of relinquishing control
and delegating responsibility upon their government for jobs
like this. Of course, after this delegation, we then
complain bitterly about our taxation rate ... go figure.
Perhaps it is time to realize that government funding for things
like canoe route maintenance have gone the way of the Dodo and
are unlikely to return in the foreseeable future. This
means one thing - if the work is to be done, it must be done by
the people who use the wilderness areas, and it must be done on
a volunteer basis.
This is not to say that this type of volunteer effort never
takes place. The Canadian Recreational Canoeing
Association annually sponsors a cleanup event that hauls tons of
garbage from canoeing areas. Many 'Friends of ...' groups
perform the same much-needed work.
Can we expand on the work of these groups and do even more?
This is a wonderful vision - hordes of wilderness paddlers with
halos hovering over their heads descending on abused campsites
and cleaning them, hacking and clearing overgrown portages and
nailing up shiny new portage signs. The problem I see with
this vision is the lack of coordination, control and
consistency.
Who decides what a thunder box should look like? What
should it be made of? What size and depth should the
excavated hole be? Where should it be placed so that it
doesn't contaminate adjacent waterways? Should it have a
hinged top? Should it have a seat, or just a sawn hole?
Should there be a consistent size, style and colour for campsite
and portage signs? Should they be wood or metal? How
big should they be? Where should they be posted? How
should they be anchored?
My vision is this.
I believe that government bodies should to some extent be
involved in this effort (see, it's the Canadian coming out in
me!) I don't think it's unreasonable for some agency to
establish rough guidelines and assist to some degree in the
coordination of this effort. The expensive part of route
maintenance is the supply of labour. Call me an optimist
or a dreamer, but I believe many paddlers would cheerfully
provide this labour if asked.
Let's say that there was a provincial or territorial body that
at minimum had a supply of portage and site signs; and
plans/guidelines for thunder box construction and installation.
I'll use Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources as an example,
since I'm from Ontario. Before I leave on a trip, I should
be able to tell the ministry where I'm paddling and pick up a
supply of portage and site signs. Using an axe or hammer,
and a handful of roofing nails, I could install the signage
along the entire route as I paddled it.
The same applies to thunder boxes. I wouldn't even expect
the ministry to supply the material. If they had a
detailed plan of the proper construction and materials, my group
would be happy to purchase and pre-cut the pieces and haul them
along with us. When we arrived at the site that needed the
facility, it would be a simple matter of choosing the location,
digging the hole and installing it. Would it be a major
pain to carry along? Certainly. Would it be worth
the effort? Absolutely.
Our current approach to maintenance seems to be fragmented and
scattered. This work is done in part by government
employees, in part by 'Friends Of ..' groups, in part by other
volunteers, in part by individuals ... is there a need to be
more organized? If so, who should take the lead on this
job?
Wading into this task without some degree of organization and
control is counterproductive. I would hate to haul along
thunder box construction materials only to find that every site
already had one in place. I wouldn't want to pick up signs
and carry them along and then realize that someone had fixed up
the signage earlier that year.
The question remains. If we as paddlers can provide the
labour to work on this problem, who should supply the
coordination to direct this labour most productively?
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