we love Gatineau Park

From the NCC

The NCC offers many special activities for the Labour Day week-end.  Join us for a concert, corn roast, a contest and much more! For info click here.

From the NCC:

Last Weekend to Enjoy Many of the NCC’S Summer Activities

NCC Beaches – Open Until Monday, September 6, 2010
40th Season of Alcatel-Lucent Sundays Bikedays – end Sunday, September 5, 2010

Here’s a post from a summer employee of the NCC who was impressed with the organization they worked for this past season.

The National Capital Commission wishes to inform the public that sections of the Gatineau Parkway will be closed to motorized traffic every Saturday from September 4 to October 23, 2010. Outdoor enthusiasts can enjoy 8.2 kilometres of scenic parkways in Gatineau Park that are reserved for cyclists, in-line skaters, runners and walkers. Gatineau Parkway between Meech Lake [...]

The blog Willow House Chronicles has posted two Gatineau Park related pieces; one entitled Champlain Lookout Trail and the other The Mackenzie King Estate. Each include a nice mix of text and pictures.

Dave Brown, Publisher of Ottawa Outdoors Magazine has written an article in Today’s Citizen describing the Wolf Trail near Meech Lake and encouraging Ottawans to get out into Gatineau Park instead of just admiring it from the Ontario side.

The Ottawa Citizen included this little nugget that it extracted from the NCC Environmental Report Gatineau Park has 10 new additions to its species-at-risk list, bringing the total of species at risk to 168 on NCC lands with 143 in the park alone. Ditto from Josh Pringle at CFRA The National Capital Commission says 168 species are at risk on [...]

Last night the Ottawa Gatineau Climbers’ Coalition held a meeting to allow their membership to react to the latest NCC plan for climbing in Gatineau Park. The NCC is offering a restricted number of routes but wishes for the Coalition to sign a partnership agreement that will enable joint management of the activity. This morning [...]

I’m a little late off the mark with this but there are almost nightly interpretive sessions at Lac Philippe going on during August. You can see the calendar of what’s on here for events both in French and English. I’ve transposed the English events into the GuideGatineau “upcoming events” list and calendar.

Cindy reports a bear sighting near Relais Plein Air and trail 5. That’s the area below and to the east of Pink Lake.

Erica who runs the KitchissippiKids blog has posted a report on her visit to the beach at Lac Philippe.

She includes tips, costs and directions.

A piece in the Ottawa Citizen starts out reporting that John Baird  Ottawa West Nepean MP and now government House leader is reassuring government workers that in trying to control government spending, their jobs won’t be at risk. He then goes on with other sunshine messages that might be considered by a cynical person a laying [...]

According to the Prairie Post Algonquin College student Kevin  Caners landed his summer job in Waterton Lakes National Park with the help of a video shot in Gatineau Park.

Deadline August 31 for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Ottawa Valley Chapter Gatineau Park Photo Contest. Photo contest winners will have their images included in the CPAWS 2011 calendar. Click here for more details.

Aug. 21 2010,10:00 @ Camp Fortune details here.

The Canadian Ski Museum and the Camp Fortune Ski Club are now offering tickets to an October 23 2010 evening of dinner, drinks and dancing.

The Charlatan takes a look at hikes in the Park

The ongoing saga of discussions between the NCC and rock climbers in Gatineau Park resurfaced yesterday with the posting at the Climbers’ Coalition website of documents and a call for a climber meeting August 17 th. While both sides are making considerable efforts at reaching agreement there remains a real risk that the lack of a happy middle ground [...]

Google alerts sometimes dig up odd things. Here’s an article from the Aug-Sept 2008 Capital Parent newspaper, written by Katherine Fletcher about wolves, their howls and people visiting parks at night to howl themselves.

From TriRudy: The LifeSki Academy is running an early-fall dryland camp for young cross country skiers to assess and improve their movement technique in regular fall activities such as running, core strength, plyometrics, ski striding-bouncing, pre and post-training stretching, and roller skiing. The camp run by an international coach will prove necessity of an instant coaching feedback [...]