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Potential National Urban Park In Halifax Passes Key Milestones

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By NPT Staff - June 11th, 2023
A series of partners gathered recently to announce progress with a proposed national urban park in Halifax.

(From left): Alannah Phillips, Acting Field Unit Superintendent, Mainland Nova Scotia, Parks Canada; Darren Fisher, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Seniors and Member of Parliament for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour; Andy Fillmore, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and Member of Parliament for Halifax; Lena Metlege Diab, Member of Parliament for Halifax West; Mayor Mike Savage, Halifax Regional Municipality; Bonnie Sutherland, Executive Director, Nova Scotia Nature Trust; David Millar, Vice-President, Real Property and Assets, Parks Canada; and The Honourable Timothy Halman, Nova Scotia Minister of Environment and Climate Change/Parks Canada

A potential national urban park at Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes in Halifax has hit key milestones.

Parks Canada has finished a pre-feasibility report showing that the candidate site in Nova Scotia has met its initial requirements of the national urban park process.

Now Parks Canada and its partners — including the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia, Halifax Regional Municipality, Province of Nova Scotia and Nova Scotia Nature Trust — will advance to the planning phase with a focus on the partner lands. They will refine and plan key components, including governance models and park boundaries, and do detailed planning for trails, public access and infrastructure needs.

The Parks Canada National Urban Parks Program is providing more than $2.1 million ($1.5 million USD) so the partners can assess opportunities for the conservation of nature and enhanced access to urban greenspace in Halifax.

This project is an ongoing collaboration with local Indigenous communities and includes lands and waters that are historically and culturally significant to the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia and their ancestors who have stewarded them for millennia.

"As Mi'kmaq, the land and the environment are intrinsically connected to who we are as people,” Bear River First Nation Chief Carol Potter, who is Culture, Heritage and Archaeology co-lead with the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs, said in a news release. “That is why it is so crucial that the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia are meaningfully engaged in discussions on how our lands are being used.”

The candidate park includes 2,304 hectares (5,693 acres) centered around the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Provincial Wilderness Area along with lands cared for by the Halifax Regional Municipality and the Nova Scotia Nature Trust.

This ground-breaking initiative could become Canada’s first national urban park to include a non-government land trust as a landowner and partner.

Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes is an area with high ecological value, with a mix of protected and native woodlands, barrens, lakes, watercourses and wetlands. Twenty-three species at risk and 61 species of conservation concern are known within or near partner-held lands. The area is already a popular destination for informal access for swimming, hiking, paddling, camping, skating, cross-country skiing, art, photography and bird watching.

Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes is located within Mi’kma’ki, the unceded traditional and current territories of the Mi’kmaq people. Parks Canada is working on a nation-to-nation basis with the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia. It’s exploring opportunities for the proposed national urban park as a place for traditional and cultural practices, a place to demonstrate leadership in conservation and stewardship, and a place with potential for economic benefit for communities.

Parks Canada is exploring potential national urban parks in various municipalities across Canada including the Victoria region (British Columbia), Edmonton region (Alberta), Saskatoon region (Saskatchewan), Winnipeg (Manitoba) and Windsor (Ontario). Early discussions are also underway in Montreal (Quebec).

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