THUNDER BAY -- Proposed changes to policies governing Quetico Provincial Park would see a significant reduction in the number of lakes where guides are allowed to operate motorized boats.
The current management plan permits guides from the adjacent Lac La Croix First Nation to use boat motors with less than 10 horsepower on 20 lakes within the park. Each season, guides can access up to 10 of those lakes.
Under the revisions, the number of eligible lakes would be reduced to nine at the western end of Quetico.
Park Superintendent Trevor Gibb says lakes being removed from the list include ones that are difficult to access in any case.
"We worked with the Lac La Croix Guides Association to essentially figure out what lakes work well for the guides and for the park, and discussed how we were going to work together to monitor the health of the lakes as guiding continues in the park," he said.
Gibb told Tbnewswatch the change would benefit the park by helping to maintain its wilderness status, while simultaneously giving the guides "security in knowing they'll have access to those lakes that they've historically used and found useful for their business" for the next 20 years.
As a wilderness park, travel including with motorized boats, aircraft, ATVs and snowmobiles is generally not permitted in Quetico. Besides the limited use of motorboats by guides, the regulations only allow the landing of aircraft on a handful of lakes by outfitters, guides and trappers.
Gibb said the overall plan strengthens the longstanding relationship between Quetico Park and the Lac La Croix First nation without changing the policies that make Quetico a wilderness canoeing paradise.
The park hosted 10,000 back-country visitors last year, and recorded roughly 60,000 camper nights.
"It's a way to measure the true impact on the park, If you have one person staying 30 nights, instead of counting them as one person, you count them as 30 camper nights, because it's a truer measure of how the park is being used," Gibb said, noting that visitor totals have been relatively stable over the past five years.
Quetico opens for the season this weekend.
The management plan is posted on the province's Environmental Bill of Rights Registry. Written comments will be accepted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry until July 4.
