Deborah Carr

Words are for sharing

Former Milltown Power Generating Station

Nov 07 2024

Restoring the Skutik

Articles, Nature & Conservation, People & Places

by Deborah Carr

(Excerpt Saltscapes Magazine, Oct/Nov 2024)

Thanks to Indigenous leadership and an international collaboration, the alewives run again

On a late September day in 2023, I meet Chief Hugh Akagi of the Peskotomuhkati Nation at Skutik and Fundy Baykeeper, Matthew Abbott, at a small memorial park on the banks of the Skutik (St. Croix) River overlooking the Milltown Power Generating Station.

Far below, a channel of water on the opposite shore thunders past the station housing one of the oldest hydro dams in Canada and rushes over a rock outcropping, cascading in a creamy froth to the river below. The rest of the river’s width remains hidden behind sections that NB Power began decommissioning in July. In another month, the station would also be gone.

Abbott breaks the silence. “A decade ago,” he says, “we could not have dreamed of this.”

Oct 11 2024

Fracked Farmland: “It’s a slow kill”

Articles, Lifestyle, Nature & Conservation

by Deborah Carr

Idyllic Farmland turned into Industrial Frackland

Vicky Simlik and her husband bought their 80-acre dream hobby farm 30 years ago in a beautiful area of hay fields and pastureland near Farmington, BC. As a paint and fibre artist, she cherished the quiet rural life. The expansive, open spaces, clean air, and frequent wildlife sightings inspired her work. As the farm was located in an Agricultural Land Reserve, a designation established to preserve valuable agricultural lands for the future, she never dreamed the peace and quiet could be taken away.

Then fifteen years ago, the oil and gas industry set their sights on the Montney formation, one of the largest known gas resources in the world. Immense profit could be found in the gas and condensate (a by-product of fracked gas used to dilute the tar-like bitumen for transport) lying below the fields of Farmington.

Aug 01 2024

Resource to Recreation

Historical, Nature & Conservation

by Deborah Carr

(Excerpt from Saltscapes Magazine Aug/Sept 2024)

How a New Brunswick village turned an industrial wasteland into a sylvan refuge

The breeze off the water has an edge to it and I pause beside a stand of common reed along the marsh trail leading to the Petitcodiac River. They whiffle back and forth and I listen to their soothing music for a moment before climbing the riverside dyke towards two towering silos, leftovers from a gypsum industry that closed in the 1980s. The marsh wasn’t so quiet back then.

From this vantage, I look back towards the village of Hillsborough, N.B., tucked into the lee of the hills that inspired its name. A variety of landscapes stretch before me: patches of young forest, hay pastures and wildflower meadows, seas of greening cattails bordering a trio of shallow ponds. Habitat for geese and ducks, warblers and hawks, muskrats and beaver, coyote and fox — a diversity of wildlife that changes with the seasons. One spring, I walked here with a birder and he spotted 52 different species in an hour.

Jun 06 2024

The Long Walk

Articles, People & Places, Travel & Tourism

by Deborah Carr

(Saltscapes Magazine June/July 2024)

Elsipogtog travels a Healing Path, moving past colonialism’s painful legacy

Under a smudged, overcast sky, Shania Dedam is lighthearted as she stands with guests beside a towering white pine, explaining traditional Indigenous uses and knowledge associated with the species. She holds up a small clump of old man’s beard.

“When this lichen is green,” she says, “it means the air is fresh, so it can be used medicinally. But it’s toxic in high doses, so don’t be using it at home or you won’t be ‘lichen’ it!”

Her pitch-perfect delivery garners appreciative chuckles from the group.

Dec 20 2023

Women of the Wilderness

Articles, Lifestyle, People & Places

by Deborah Carr

(Excerpt Saltscapes Magazine, Cover feature, Dec 2023)

Women in Southeast New Brunswick are taking to the woods together and having a blast.

The first time I met Sarah Lord, she was leading a hike to the Midland Ice Cave near Norton, N.B. The icy alcove tucked behind a frozen waterfall on private land is the kind of local treasure that isn’t advertised, but continues to be popular due to the agreeability of the landowner.

This is what Lord does best: she sniffs out hidden New Brunswick destinations, works out the kinks of getting there safely, and helps others stretch their comfort levels and discover the beauty of their own backyard without the worry of getting lost or encountering the unknown.

Sep 10 2023

Saving the forest for the trees

Articles, Nature & Conservation, People & Places

by Deborah Carr

(Excerpt, Atlantic Business Magazine, Sept/Oct 2023)

Fire prevention starts with forest protection; lessons in woodlot management

Mike Spence leads the way through the forest, pointing out landscape features and individual trees, mushrooms and woodland flowers. Sunlight filters through the leafy canopy, moss cushions the ground, water tumbles over roots and stones in a nearby brook. We spot tracks from a doe and fawn, a moose and bear.

“We’re trying to maintain the forest that’s been here for 200 years,” he said. “We have maple, yellow and white birch, spruce, oak, hornbeam, ironwood and ash…”

Apr 23 2022

Just think!

Articles, Nature & Conservation

by Deborah Carr

(Saltscapes Magazine, Dec 2020)

Our thoughtlessness and ignorance costs wildlife dearly. (Part 2 of a 2-part series)

Jim Goltz enjoys walking along the edge of the Wolastoq (Saint John) River near Fredericton. Shadowed by the graffitied abutments of the Princess Margaret Bridge and bounded by the busy Lincoln Road, the riverside space where we meet is surrounded by urban development, a place representative of the human impacts on nature.

From here, one can follow the Salamanca Trail north to the spot where Wolastoqiyik elders and other First Nations representatives held a ceremony in 2018 to reclaim the river’s original name of ‘Wolastoq’, meaning ‘bountiful, beautiful river.’ Elders say reclaiming the river’s name is a step towards healing.

Apr 19 2022

We’re the Problem

Articles, Award Winners, Nature & Conservation

by Deborah Carr

(Saltscapes Magazine, Oct/Nov 2020; International Regional Magazine Awards, Silver award winner, Nature & Environmental category)

When wildlife brushes up against human activity, it usually ends poorly for the animal. This dedicated duo of wildlife rehabilitators works to rewrite that ending (part 1 of a 2-part series)

The phone call from Canaport LNG came in at 10AM on September 14, 2013. Flocks of birds had flown into a gas flare the night before, the caller said. Can you help?

Barry Rothfuss, Executive Director of Atlantic Wildlife Institute (AWI), a wildlife rehabilitation facility in Cookville, NB, hung up the phone and kicked into high gear, initiating protocols he’d developed over decades of emergency response. By 2PM, he and a team of well-trained responders had arrived at the Saint John, NB facility overlooking the Bay of Fundy.

The scene was horrific. Thousands of dead and dying songbirds covered an area the size of two football fields. Some were flopping about unable to fly; others still tumbled from the sky. A feeding frenzy of gulls plucked up the helpless fallen. Traumatized workers were unsure what to do.

“In an event like this, your mind focuses on the task at hand,” recalls Barry. “You don’t have time to reflect on emotions, or the animals suffering. Your job is to remediate and respond as best you can.”

Jan 01 2018

Can’t See the Forest or the Trees

Articles, Nature & Conservation

by Deborah Carr

(Saltscapes Magazine, Jan 2018)

Is it time for tough questions on woodland management? Is an industrial softwood tree farm still a forest?

For as long as I can remember, an autumn drive on the rural roads surrounding Elgin, NB has been a feast for the eyes. It’s home for me, part of my heritage; a landscape of farmer’s fields, steep hillsides of brilliant sugar maples, clear boulder-tumbled rivers and waterfalls.

But just beyond the line of sight, I find a very different landscape. Single species tree plantations replace natural forest. Industrial clearcutting operations scrape every living thing from the soil my ancestors settled, leaving nothing but a scattering of chewed and dismembered limbs. Tractor trailers queue up, waiting for the next load of maple, birch, pine and spruce logs or chips.

Some of this is industrial freehold (company-owned), but some is Crown. This is ours. The people’s land; held in the public trust.

But has that trust been broken?

Apr 01 2017

The Lightkeeper’s Daughters

Articles, Award Winners, Historical, People & Places

by Deborah Carr

(Saltscapes Magazine, Apr/May 2017; Atlantic Journalism Awards Magazine Article silver finalist)

New Brunswick’s Grindstone Island is a storied place with a history etched in stone

Grindstone Island. Named for the sandstone once quarried from its cliffs and reefs, this tiny Bay of Fundy island marks the spot where the salty waters of Shepody Bay flow past the hook of Mary’s Point into Chignecto Bay.

Its lighthouse sits atop a bluff overlooking ‘Five Fathom Hole’, once a deep anchorage for ships even at low tide. The stones along its shore bear fossils from tropical times, the names of those who lived here, and others who wished to leave their mark.