Logging

Forest Management

A major purpose of Algonquin Park should be to retain the natural biodiversity that was present in this area long before people started to dominate the Park. This requires careful study and maintenance of many kinds of forest stands and wildlife species. The Great Lakes - St. Lawrence Forest Region, where the Park is located, contains some of the most diverse ecosystems in Ontario and we should spare no effort to retain these ecosystems in a healthy state.

One of the tools that can help maintain healthy ecosystems, in heavily populated and utilized areas, is careful and properly controlled logging and prescribed burning. When properly used, these tools will help maintain normal wildlife and plant populations in the Park.

This autumn aerial view of the Little Dixon Lake area depicts a good mix of deciduous-coniferous early/late/mid-successional forest with the old logging roads still visible after having naturally seeded to aspen, the fall leaves of which highlight the roads in yellow.

Continued educational upgrading of tree markers together with objective operational field auditing will be necessary if forest management is to achieve its goals in the Algonquin Ecosystem.

Overcutting of hemlock, an important winter shelter species for deer, contributed strongly to the decline of the Algonquin deer population during the late 1960’s and 1970’s. Moose, a species better adapted to the rigours of Algonquin winters subsequently replaced deer as the predominant Algonquin ungulate. In addition to providing excellent winter shelter however, hemlock is a preferred food for both moose and deer and heavy long-term browsing by these species has consequently allowed very little recruitment, or escape to the overstory, with hemlock slowly becoming a decreasing component of the Algonquin forest.

This hilltop in the Kiosk vicinity, from which half the mature hemlock was removed in the 1960’s to provide shoring timber during the construction of the Toronto Subway System, would have provided an ideal bedding site for wintering deer prior to cutting. Thirty years later however, there is still no recruitment of young hemlock to replace either the trees that were earlier removed, the stumps of which are still visible, or the remaining hemlock as they become over mature and fall.

Recent evidence indicates that red spruce, a species that is difficult to differentiate from white spruce, may also have been subjected to severe overcutting. Increasing research and education efforts are paramount if the integrity and diversity of this dynamic ecosystem are to be protected.

This spruce grouse , more commonly found in the northern boreal forest, typifies the great species variety found in the Algonquin Ecosystem thanks to diversified habitat, a combined function of geological landforms, highly variable weather and maintaining a good mix of early, late and mid-successional habitat types through careful forest management.