The Tobeatic Wilderness Area is the largest

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood ...

in the Canadian

Maritimes The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of ...

, located in southwestern

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

. It contains nearly 120,000 hectares of land and spans parts of five counties,

Annapolis Annapolis ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

Digby Digby may refer to: Places Australia * Digby, Victoria, a town Canada * Digby (electoral district), a former federal electoral district in Nova Scotia (1867–1914) * Digby (provincial electoral district), a provincial electoral district ...

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

, Shelburne and Yarmouth.Tobeatic Wilderness Area
Government of Nova Scotia Located adjacent to

Kejimkujik National Park Kejimkujik National Park () is a National Parks of Canada, national park of Canada, covering in the southwest of Nova Scotia peninsula. Located within three municipalities, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, Annapolis, Region of Queens Municipality ...

, it was formerly known as the Tobeatic Wildlife Management Area, and the Tobeatic Game Reserve.

History

The name Tobeatic is derived from "Place of the Alder" in the

Mi'kmaq language The Miꞌkmaq language ( ; ), or , is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 Miꞌkmaq in Canada and the United States; the total ethnic Miꞌkmaq population is roughly 20,000. The native name of the language is , or (in some ...

. Archaeological research shows that the Mi’kmaq people were present in the Tobeatic at least 4500 years ago. In 1927, a portion of the area was designated as a game sanctuary. In 1968, it was designated as a Wildlife Management Area. In 1998 it was designated as one of 31 Wilderness Areas in the province. It is managed by the Department of Environment and Climate Change for the province in partnership with the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables.Focus on the Tobeatic
Government of Nova Scotia In 2015, nearly 16,000 hectares were added to the wilderness area.

Geography

It contains large areas of

Acadian forest The Acadians (; , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, most descendants of Acadians live in either the Northern American region of Acadia, w ...

. The geography is varied, consisting of

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...

scrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally o ...

s and barrens. The landscape was shaped by the last glaciation, which left glacial barrens, erratics,

drumlin A drumlin, from the Irish word ("little ridge"), first recorded in 1833, in the classical sense is an elongated hill in the shape of an inverted spoon or half-buried egg formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidated till or groun ...

esker An esker, eskar, eschar, or os, sometimes called an ''asar'', ''osar'', or ''serpent kame'', is a long, winding ridge of stratified sand and gravel, examples of which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North Amer ...

moraines A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris ( regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice sh ...

hummocks In geology, a hummock is a small knoll or mound above ground.Bates, Robert L. and Julia A. Jackson, ed. (1984). "hummock." Dictionary of Geological Terms, 3rd Ed. New York: Anchor Books. p. 241. They are typically less than in height and ten ...

outwash plain An outwash plain, also called a sandur (plural: ''sandurs''), sandr or sandar, is a plain formed of glaciofluvial deposits due to meltwater outwash at the glacier terminus, terminus of a glacier. As it flows, the glacier grinds the underlying r ...

s and

kettle lake A kettle (also known as a kettle hole, kettlehole, or pothole) is a depression or hole in an outwash plain formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. The kettles are formed as a result of blocks of dead ice left behind by retreating ...

s. It is composed of several geological units including the Goldenville Formation, the Halifax Formation, and Middle to Late

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

biotite Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron- endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more al ...

monzogranite Monzogranite is a plutonic rock that occupies the middle of the QAPF diagram, consisting of between 20–60% quartz, and of the remainder, between 35–65% alkali feldspar and the remainder plagioclase. Examples Pilgangoora belt, Pilbara c ...

and leucomonzogranite. Wildlife includes

eastern moose The eastern moose (''Alces alces americana'') is a subspecies of moose that currently ranges throughout Eastern Canada, New England and northern New York (state), New York State. It inhabits boreal forests and mixed deciduous forests. It is the t ...

and

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...

. The region has many lakes and rivers including the Shelburne, Clyde, and Tusket rivers.

Public access

Primitive hunting and public leasing of land is allowed, with hunters only allowed to hunt for six consecutive days commencing on the third Monday in October each year with only a muzzleloader, bow or crossbow.

Campsite Campsite, campground, and camping pitch are all related terms regarding a place used for camping (an overnight stay in an outdoor area). The usage differs between British English and American English. In British English, a ''campsite'' is an ...

s, canoe routes, and

portage Portage or portaging ( CA: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a '' ...

s are not as developed or maintained as the nearby Kejimkujik. Motorized vehicle use within the reserve is not permitted. Along with Kejimkujik, the Tobeatic is part of the UNESCO designated

Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve The Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve was designated in 2001 under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme. The Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve spans over 1.54 million hectares consisting of five counties in Nova Scotia, Canada: Annapolis, Dig ...

In popular culture

The area is the setting for the 1908 Albert Paine novel, ''

The Tent Dwellers ''The Tent Dwellers'' is a book by Albert Bigelow Paine, chronicling his travels through inland Nova Scotia on a trout fishing trip with Dr. Edward "Eddie" Breck, and with guides Charles "the Strong" (Charlie Charlton of Milford, NS) and Del "th ...

'', which chronicles a three-week fishing trip through the area.Proposed clearcut near pending expansion of protected wilderness area sparks concern
CBC News

References

{{Nova Scotia parks Protected areas of Nova Scotia Geography of Annapolis County, Nova Scotia Geography of Digby County, Nova Scotia Geography of Queens County, Nova Scotia Geography of Yarmouth County Geography of Shelburne County, Nova Scotia Tourist attractions in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia Tourist attractions in Digby County, Nova Scotia Tourist attractions in Queens County, Nova Scotia Tourist attractions in Yarmouth County Tourist attractions in Shelburne County, Nova Scotia