Envirocredits and the land we love

With 600 acres of land including hardwoods, spruce bogs, wetlands, small lakes, big lake shorelines, hemlock stands and open fields, we've always been keenly interested in preserving the environment around us. We are actively partnered with Forest Management and Wildlife Management programs, and over the years have received awards for land stewardship.

One of my favourite 'secret places' is to walk in to the Hidden Lake, a black spruce bog -- the trail is littered with sundews, pitcher plants, Indian pipe and high bush blueberrries. The trees drip old lichen, and there are always some birds to be found. There's no official trail to this site -- we go in along a deer path, and several times a summer we take an escorted Nature Hike in to the lake. There's reason behind this: quite simply, it limits the number of people who will tramp through the delicate environment, and it elimiates people who will pick the rare plants.









The lake is just the focal point of a large, sprawling wetland. In the winter, one of our ski trails cuts through the black spruce and the bog (it's not passable come summer) and it is a haven for rabbits, mice, grouse and wild turkeys. Fox tracks, wolf tracks and the tiny pointed toes of deer criss cross the snow, and for fourteen yers we had a Gray Jay living in this forest. Gray jays are being hard pressed by global warming: nesting in the winter, they rely on their hidden stacks of food to get them through the cold months, and if the temperature is too warm, the stashed food can mold and become unusable.

But this isn't a post about Gray Jays -- that deserves a separate post all to itself. Nor is it about our Hidden Lake bog.

It's about Envirocredits, and how you, too, can help steward the land. The Muskoka Watershed Council in partnership with Muskoka Heritage and Westwind Forest Management is offering a program of Enviromental Credit, where your donations will go towards reforestation and wetland preservation (among other programs) It's a nice way to offset your personal carbon emissions, and help to ensure that there will still be black spruce forests for gray jays -- and weather that will keep their food stashes cold -- for future generations. Forests and wetlands are often underestimated for their value, or overestimated for their 'harvest potential'. We prefer to see our wetland left alone to look after itself, and all its inhabitants, the way it was intended to do.

You can learn more about the Muskoka Envirocredits program by checking in at their website, and we encourage you to do just that!