Established in 1968 for the Preservation of Williams Lake
Raptors, songbirds, waterfowl and many other migratory birds consider Williams Lake and its watershed their home sweet home. They can be spotted in the treed canopy in the Shaw Wilderness Park and tucked in the globally rare Jack Pine-Broom Crowberry community along the glacier-sculpted granite ridges on the Osprey Ridge Trail in the Backlands next to the Williams Lake watershed.
The Halifax Regional Municipality has purchased four parcels of land totaling approximately 46 hectares, located to the west of Shaw Wilderness Park, in Halifax.
Dear Friends of the Backlands,
This is such good news for our mission to protect the Backlands. As you will read below, the Nova Scotia Nature Trust has a campaign to protect 17 acres of treasured land near Purcells Pond. The Pond is a special place for quiet reflection, swimming and watching wildlife.
Wildfires have slammed our local communities recently and heightened our awareness of the results of human activity on climate change. Besides the practical tasks, such as emergency evacuation preparedness, we are now looking to the science of wetlands as a valuable and available natural defence against wildfires.
Attacking prickly Multiflora Rose bushes and hacking out dense thickets of Japanese Knotweed takes a team of determined volunteers. Melanie Dobson, a member of the Williams Lake Conservation Company (WLCC) has been leading the campaign against these pervasive and invasive weeds along the Williams Lake Road and the Purcell’s Cove Road for many years. She is trying to stop the plants from spreading further into the Williams Lake watershed.