Colvin Lake Provincial Park, known as the Land of Little Sticks, protects a total of 163,070 hectares in the northwestern corner of Manitoba. (www.gov.mb.ca)

The Manitoba government has created two new provincial parks to protect 610,000 hectares of northern wilderness.

Colvin Lake and Nueltin Lake Parks feature pristine northern-transition forest habitat with a total area 10 times larger than Winnipeg, Premier Greg Selinger stated in a news release.

"You only get one chance to protect pristine boreal forest and tundra. By protecting this land, we are preserving our wilderness heritage for future generations and supporting the growth of ecotourism while respecting the people who call the area home," he said.

The Colvin Lake Provincial Park, known as the Land of Little Sticks, protects a total of 163,070 hectares in the northwestern corner of Manitoba.

Nueltin Lake Provincial Park totals 447,190 hectares. Nueltin, which is from the Chipewyan language and means sleeping island lake, straddles the Manitoba-Nunavut border.

Both fall in an area of transition between boreal forest and tundra landscapes and are within the traditional territories of the Northlands Denesuline First Nation and Sayisi Dene First Nation.

The parks include numerous freshwater lakes, eskers and frost-heaved rock and boulder fields that make overland travel through the area challenging.

The new parks provide habitat for diverse plant communities and wildlife species such as the Qamanirjuaq barren ground caribou herds, moose, black bear, wolverine, wolf, lynx, fox, river otter, weasel and mink.

Public consultation process

A public consultation process led to the designation of the lands around Colvin Lake and Nueltin Lake as provincial parks under the wilderness land-use category, Selinger noted.

Lands included in a wilderness land-use category designated under the Provincial Parks Act legally prohibit commercial logging, mining, hydroelectric development, oil and gas development, and any other activities that may significantly or adversely affect habitat.

However, the rights of First Nations and other aboriginal people to access these areas for hunting, trapping, fishing and other traditional pursuits will be respected and will continue, said Selinger.

He added that Nueltin Lake and Colvin Lake parks store an estimated 126 million tonnes of carbon, the equivalent to the emissions of 2.5 million cars in 10 years.