River Life | Canoe vs. Gutter

All summer, The Press takes you on a journey through Quebec, telling you about the life of rivers. Human, scientific or historical stories that all have a river as their link. This week: the Mille Îles River.

When Jean Lauzon began paddling in the Mille Îles River in the late 1970s, it took imagination to see it as a natural environment to be preserved. More gutter than canoe paradise.

“Cities were flushing right into the river. There were plumes of shit. I was paddling through corn, condoms, toilet paper,” the 60-year-old recalled last spring during a trip out on the water with The Press.

Today, the water is clouded with sediment, but there is no sign of garbage. Mr. Lauzon contributed to this transformation by creating the organization that would become Éco-Nature. The group is dedicated to protecting and interpreting the waterway and its immediate surroundings.

Among Éco-Nature’s flagship activities since its beginnings in 1985: boat rental. Because its co-founder is an outdoorsman before being an ecologist.

It was by taking young people canoeing and camping on the Mille Îles River, as part of a municipal summer camp, that the adopted Laval resident fell in love with it, despite the level of contamination.

“Let’s just say it was borderline,” he said. Some campers even got seriously ill because of the contaminated water. “Some kids had gone to wash their dishes in the river. We didn’t know. And it got out of hand.” Viral meningitis.

But despite the deplorable state of the watercourse, ” we were walking, we saw that, we saw that it was beautiful and that there was a lack of natural environments in urban areas.”

The mangrove in Laval

In an area flooded by the river, Jean Lauzon’s canoe slips through the trunks and branches. One only has to squint a little to imagine an African mangrove or a Louisiana bayou. With an expert arm, he handles the paddle to slip through. A Venetian gondolier.

“This is all silver maple,” a species that doesn’t mind having both feet in water for a few weeks a year, he explains. “In the summer, you can’t go in here. Now, we can go in because the water is high.”

On some islands, it is rather mature wooded areas which have been able to survive thanks to their relative isolation.

Once all private and sometimes inhabited, most of the river’s islands have been protected over the years. “There are people who have started giving us islands,” explained Mr. Lauzon, who recounts a testamentary donation to Éco-Nature that the deceased’s family learned about in a notary’s office at the fateful moment.

However, not all local residents were so generous.

Over the years, Éco-Nature has fought against many delinquent landowners who filled in banks or cut down trees without authorization. However, the biggest conflicts pitted the organization against Laval City Hall, particularly during the administration of Gilles Vaillancourt, who did not see the river through the same lenses. “They had us in their clutches for 40 years,” said Jean Lauzon, with a satisfied air.

departure

The year after Jean Lauzon retired, in 2021, Éco-Nature was entrusted with the management of hundreds of hectares protected under the name of “Rivière-des-Mille-Îles Park”. More than 150,000 people visit it each year.

The mayor of Laval and nine counterparts from the northern suburbs also signed a joint commitment to expand and transform the current territory into a “metropolitan conservation park.” “This will extend 42 km along the Mille Îles River and could potentially cover more than 5,000 hectares,” the mayors said.

Even if this project sees the light of day, the work is far from finished: the contamination of the Mille Îles River is no longer as visible as it was in 1985, but the quality of the water still makes swimming impossible on most sections. This is due, among other things, to overflows from sewer systems during particularly rainy weather.

“There is only one place suitable for swimming,” concluded the Rivers Foundation last year. In light of this data, the City of Laval would benefit from stepping up its efforts to clean up its wastewater.”

Jean Lauzon leaves this work to his successors. “I spent 40 years protecting the banks, preventing embankments, preventing clearcutting,” he said. “It was still enjoyable. They were great battles. We didn’t win them all, but…” Battles that were all the more important since the river serves as a source of drinking water for 500,000 people.

As for the coming years, the canoeist is leaving Laval and the Mille Îles River this year for a lake in the Laurentians. For good: “You wouldn’t need a house?”

He’ll come back from time to time. A boat ride is all he needs.