Introducing La Mauricie National Park

Park La Mauricie, here we come! Next week-end Michel and I are leaving for our little adventure in La Mauricie National Park. It's not my first time in the park as Michel and I camped there with our boys about ten years ago. The one memory I have from that visit is ... being eaten alive by MOSQUITOES! I'm not the only one as my brother Bruno had the same experience. The mosquitoes were relentless in July but I should be safe in March.

The bike imprint in the above picture was made in the park by snowshoers who take on the snow tag challenge and draw an ephemeral piece of art on a frozen lake. Not sure I'll be taken on that challenge!

Located midway between Montreal and Quebec City, the Park was established in 1970 and is 536 square km (slightly bigger than Montreal Island). It is described in my Guide to the National Parks of Canada as “A sprawling network of valleys, and a multitude of lakes, streams, and falls all bear witness to its history. Conifers and hardwoods intermingle to form a gigantic forest mosaic. Visitors will be awestruck by the park’s strings of lakes, flowering covers, natural beaches, rock cliffs, speckled trouts, loons, and moose.”

According to my resource book, A Century of Parks Canada, 1911- 2011, La Mauricie National Park played a significant role in the history of the parks as new arguments of science and mapping of ecology were used by Parks Canada to justify the presence of a park. The book states that “in establishing La Mauricie National Park, Parks Canada joined an important current of environmental thought that contrasts the wild frontier of the North American west with the industrial landscapes of the East”. Interesting.

I’ll see what this is all about next week-end.