Navigation: This page is a subpage of The Camps, a top-level page on the blog/website Nova Scotia Forest Matters (nsforestmatters.ca)
Intro: “Camp N.O.W. – Need Our Wilderness – was set up on November 30th on Crown land in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area in Annapolis County by Save Our Old Forests’ president Nina Newington and others who have been working to get the area permanently protected since 2022.
Camp NOW is protesting the government’s failure to protect the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area or any other new Wilderness Areas on public lands. Progress towards protecting 20% of Nova Scotia’s lands and waters by 2030 has been miniscule, less than half a percent since the commitment was included in the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act in 2021. Instead, DNR is approving logging in citizen-proposed Wilderness Areas including Goldsmith Lake, Beals Brook, Ingram River and Chain Lakes. Read more
 Listen to interview with Nina Newington on Todd Veinot Show, Dec 9, 2025. Todd V asks: Explain the theory behind this camp? Why are Old Growth forests important? Whats the difference between an Old Growth forest and an old forest? Regarding carbon capture, whats the difference between a 30 year old forest and an old forest? Can there be a balance between those that want to log and those that want to protect? The government changed laws on these kind of protests this year – any concern that they might come and shut you down? What would get you out of out of the tent tomorrow? On the last question Nina replies “Well if the government said yes we’re gonna get Environment to do the formal review of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness area so that we’re working towards protecting it and in the meantime will put a freeze on the harvests we have planned for this area that would do it…” |
POSTS FROM CAMP NOW
Most recent at top.
These posts are copies of the original posts on Friends of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area (Public Facebook Group)
Camp NOW — Day 23
Nina Newington
Snow tells stories about what our no’kmaq — our relations — are up to. Last night, for example, or perhaps in the early hours of this morning — long enough ago for some snow to have sifted into his or her tracks — a coyote came trotting up the logging road from the north. Twenty metres from camp they slowed then made a tight little circle and went back the way they came. After a few metres they headed west into the forest.
A hundred and fifty metres south of the camp, coyote tracks reappear on the road. They come out of the forest on the west side of the road. Same size tracks, same length of stride, same vintage. Probably the same coyote, going on about their business, having skirted the camp, heading south on the road past Corbett Lake.
Other fresher tracks cross the coyote’s: snowshoe hare, squirrel, mice, a grouse.
When I was younger I took tracking courses from a guy called Paul Rezendes and wandered the woods where I lived, hungry to read the forest. I was never that good at tracking, but eager to learn. I found out early that paying close attention to the natural world is a reliable source of joy. It is also heartbreaking. If you’ve paid attention, it is impossible to miss how empty the woods are, compared to how they were even 40 years ago. And by all accounts, those woods were empty compared to the way they had been 40 years before that.
Recent studies have established the links between forest degradation – the loss of old natural forest — in the Maritimes and declines in bird populations. It’s not only birds that need settlers to mend our ways. Colonization devastated the wildlife of Mi’kma’ki as surely and as systematically as it devastated the human society indigenous to this place. But the web of life in these lands and waters is powerful and resilient.
However diminished the forests may be, it matters more than ever to protect the best of what is left.
And it matters to learn. Paying close attention deepens love. It is love of the land and the water that makes us willing to stand up for this place and for all our relations.
By a happy coincidence there is a two day tracking workshop coming up at the end of January, with one of the days using Camp NOW as a base. Spaces are limited.
https://www.toknowtheland.com/events/nova-scotia-wildlife-track-and-sign-two-day-workshop
Camp NOW — Day 21
Nina Newington
Camp came through the storm just fine.
And today we crossed the threshold into winter. Every year I am grateful that the days are already getting longer by the time winter bares its teeth. Imagine if the days kept getting shorter until February!
The Winter Solstice is a holy day to me, a day to ground in the cycle of the year in northern climes. To connect with ancestors who knew without question that we are part of the natural world. Living in a tent helps.
Not without artificial lighting, it must be said. The length of the nights is measured in the battery power required to charge camp’s ‘solar’ lanterns.
But today, today is the day the nights start growing shorter.
It is also the day a terrifing array of delectable treats arrived at camp from Arch & Po bakery in Annapolis Royal. I’ll do my best to diffuse the treat bomb but it’s a good thing we have plenty of visitors coming over the holidays.
Looking at all these goodies is reminding me of the first time Arch & Po sent Christmas treats. That was to the Last Hope Camp, set up on December 2nd, 2021 to protest the planned logging of a forest by Beals Brook, about 15 km east of here. They sent us tree cookies with green icing. That tangible, edible support really mattered. It still does.
Thank you, Arch & Po, and all the other local businesses that support SOOF’s work. Special shout out to the Bees Knees while I am at it for donating yummy bread to so many SOOF Soup Sundays.
There’s something about these cold short days that makes one treasure human warmth and kindness even more than usual. Camping out in winter ratchets that up a notch. It also makes me very aware of all the people without shelter, without the funds to stay warm, without dry clothes, without enough to eat.
Lots of people are asking about donating to Camp NOW. We are doing fine for now so if you can, make a donation to people who need a little help to stay warm and dry and fed this season.
Camp NOW — Day 19
Nina Newington Dec 19, 2025
The Goldsmith Lake area is one of only a few places on the mainland where Marten have been documented in multiple locations.
Yesterday, in the calm before the storm, documentary maker Emily Russell stopped by camp again to get some drone footage and to talk a bit more in the wake of the arson at Hunter’s Mountain.
She got to try out the new Marten mask too. The Pine or American Marten is recognized as endangered in Cape Breton. DNR has been studying Marten populations on the mainland. The Wildlife division is in the process of recognizing the Marten as endangered in the whole of Nova Scotia. The Goldsmith Lake area is one of only a few places on the mainland where Marten have been documented in multiple locations.
DNR recognizes that the Corbett peninsula — where camp is located — is Marten habitat. And yet their plans allow logging to go ahead here.
Camp NOW is here to speak for the Marten. They need this forest to be protected. Wildlife need protected wilderness areas. So do people.
Camp NOW is here to protest this government’s ongoing failure to meet its own legal commitment to protect 20% of our land land and water.
Thank you to all our visitors, from film-makers to carol singers to cookie-bearers and firewood-bringers and camp-tie-downers, to people stopping by to say hello and get a little owl-y. ‘Tis the season to care for all our relations.
Msit No’kmaq
Day 17 Biodiversity in the GLWA
By Keith Egger
Camp NOW — Day 12
Nina Newington Dec 12, 2025
No visitors yesterday — the road in was horrible — but beautiful brief sunny breaks.
Wednesday brought Erin and Emily, making a documentary about Hunters Mountain, and Sadie Beaton, fellow organizer for last month’s Shoulder to Shoulder: We Are All Treaty People rally.
Sadie has been showing up for her responsibilities as a settler under the Treaties of Peace and Friendship for many years now. She has built relationships of trust by being there for the work. It was a privilege to sit and listen and talk in the tent while Emily recorded and filmed and Erin asked questions.
Tim Houston’s aggressive disrespect for Mi’kmaw rights, the rights of nature, our democratic rights as Nova Scotians, is prompting many more of us to stand up, to stand together, to say ‘No, this is not the direction we want to go in. We want to live in peace and friendship with each other and with all our non-human relatives on this beautiful unceded land.’
It is good to have time at camp to think and feel about my own responsibilities as a settler here. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work peacefully and persistently to protect forests and lakes and wetlands that are home to such a variety of life. To speak for those who cannot speak for themselves: the animals, the trees, the fungi, the lichens.
Msit No’kmaq.
Camp NOW – Day 8
Nina Newington Dec 8, 2025
Check out The Todd Veinotte Show on 95.7 News radio tomorrow at 10:30am. Live interview from Camp NOW!
In the meantime, visitors and beautiful fluffy snow and dry firewood. Life is good.
Speak for the animals. They too need protected areas.
Nina Newington
Camp NOW – Day 6
Fun to have visitors to camp, bringing news of otters — four of them crossing the road on the way in!
I keep thinking about all the wildlife displaced by the Long Lake fire. The fire came right up to the southeast corner of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. The fire burned 85 square kilometers. The proposed Wilderness Area covers 40 square km. Wildlife need refuge more than ever. Why can’t the government just protect this area?
Donna Crossland spoke so well about this in yesterday’s CBC interview. Protecting the area helps people as well as animals, especially the people who are now living in a blackened landscape. The green shade of an old forest is soothing, healing.
To listen to the interview or read a rough transcript, check out https://nsforestmatters.ca/in-the-news-top/in-the-news-climate-change/rough-transcript-of-what-do-forest-protections-look-like-now
Dec 4, 2025
Nina Newington
Camp N.O.W. – Need Our Wilderness – is up and running on the Corbett Peninsula in Annapolis County, the same part of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area where Lichen Camp was set up in April.
But Camp NOW is different. We are here to protest this government’s failure to protect the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area or any other new Wilderness Areas on public lands. Progress towards protecting 20% of Nova Scotia’s lands and waters by 2030 has been miniscule, less than half a percent since the 20% commitment was included in the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act in 2021. Instead, DNR is approving logging in citizen-proposed Wilderness Areas including Goldsmith Lake, Beals Brook, Ingram River and Chain Lakes.
“Camp NOW occupies the exact same spot as this year’s Lichen Camp”. Photo from the Lichen Camp,
A couple of weeks ago, citizen scientists discovered new flagging around the largest cutblock on the Corbett peninsula. With recognized Pine Marten habitat, three stands of old growth forest, and 12 confirmed species at risk occurrences, the peninsula’s high conservation value is well-established. It more than meets all the government’s own criteria for areas to protect. But DNR is allowing logging to go ahead anyway. Enough is enough.
MORE ON THIS STORY tomorrow at 6:40 am on CBC Radio’s Information Morning