Here is a response to this activity from Sustainable Development:
"Thanks for your email and sorry in the delay in getting back to you yesterday after the long weekend. I have included Tracy Webber from Booster on this email as well, as I see that you included her in your original email Friday.
Allowable activities in Provincial Parks are directed through Land Use Categories (LUC) as well as the park purpose statement. If you reference the draft management plan for Nopiming Provincial Park (
http://www.gov.mb.ca/sd/parks/consult/pdf/nopiming_draft_management_plan.pdf) on pg 5 outlines the park purpose statements and the LUCs in Nopiming, these two things formed the basis for all the park discussions during the draft planning discussions and have been in place since the early 90s. The park purpose statements for Nopiming park are:
• preserve areas of habitat for the threatened woodland caribou
• provide nature-oriented recreational opportunities such as canoeing, hiking and mountain biking in a largely undisturbed environment
• provide high quality cottaging, camping, boating and fishing opportunities, and accommodate related facilities and services
• promote public appreciation and understanding of Nopiming’s natural and cultural heritage
• accommodate commercial resource uses such as mining where such activities do not compromise other park purposes.
Neither the park purpose statements or the park LUCs were proposed to be changed during the draft management planning process; in order to change LUCs a public consultation is required outline the details.
Nopiming Provincial Park has a long history of mineral exploration and continues to be active currently. Most of these activities occur in the Resource Management LUC (although mineral activities are also allowed in the Recreational Development LUC where they do not impact recreation directly). The draft plan has a map of the LUCs on pg. 6 for your reference.
The Cat Lake area has several claims that are being explored through different techniques. If any of the claims at this site (or any other site in the park) were to move to a next stage that included development of a mine then a full public consultation process would occur through the Environmental Act. The area north of 314/315 is also an area of claims, this winter exploratory work was conducted as geophysical surveys which requires narrow lines to be cut in order to run the equipment.
If an exploration project is going to directly impact a cottage community we ask the companies to engage with them to help mitigate any concerns, at Cat Lake there is no adjacent community and the Bird Lake project was conducted on the claim itself and did not have any increased traffic or other concerns. If you association is interested we can give a mining general update when we attend cottage meetings, we do this for other associations just to give them a general idea of activities throughout the park.
If you have any other questions please let me know and I am always happy to discuss in person or over the phone,
Morgan Hallett
Parks Specialist - Eastern Region
Department of Sustainable Development"