Secondary 5 students from Saint-Luc secondary school, in the heart of Montreal, as well as their Eco-Citizen and Outdoor Activities teacher, had the unique opportunity, last September, to go down the famous Magpie River on the Côte -North with the contribution of the local company Noryak Aventures.
This journey is part of a larger project, aimed at democratizing access to wild natural environments for the benefit of young people from urban areas, for whom the nature deficit is more acute.
This phenomenon, increasingly documented and more widespread in urban areas, causes a marked disconnection between humans and their environment. From then on, young people, spending more time indoors, no longer experience intimate moments with nature. This has the effect of harming the way we treat our ecosystems.
In other words, living surrounded by concrete contributes to making people forget that intact ecosystems like that of the Magpie are the support of life on earth.
This seems all the more obvious to us when we see the CAQ refuse to protect a jewel like the Magpie, under the pretext of hypothetical future developments. With COP15, we understood more than ever the importance of protecting our natural environments. In this sense, the logic of waiting in case we can derive economic benefits seems inadequate to us.
We invite those who decide the fate of natural spaces to go and experience intimate and meaningful moments with nature. For the young people from Saint-Luc school, this visit to the Côte-Nord completely changed their relationship to the protection of the environment. In a very short time, they were able to create deep bonds with the humans who inhabit this territory. It should be remembered that these humans, Innu and Nord-Côtiers, declared that they wanted to protect the Magpie River and by resolution granted rights to the river. They also won the Rights and Freedoms award from the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse for this initiative. A first in Canada for a natural space!
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR
The students of École Saint-Luc invite “those who decide the fate of natural spaces to go and experience intimate and meaningful moments with nature”.
“The Magpie River is a true oasis for young people from urban backgrounds. Thanks to this trip, we discovered peace and beauty. The starry sky, the northern lights, the landscapes, the fauna, the flora as well as the sound of water are magnificent sensory experiences that should not become even more limited than they already are. The preservation of the river is important, this territory should not have to suffer for our energy whims. A dam would engulf all the beautiful and rich life found there. — Simone Jones Beaudin, student
“The Magpie River has opened my eyes to the beauty of nature as much as it has helped me understand the simplicity of life. It’s a chance to be in contact with wild natural environments and it is becoming more and more urgent to preserve them. I have never been happier than when I slept to the sound of such gentle waves. I found peace within me, because the river feeds us, gives us to drink and fills us with wonder. — Lucian Popovici, student
We ask the Government of Quebec to protect the Magpie River from future construction of hydroelectric dams so that it remains alive for generations and generations.
* Last September, 10 students from Saint-Luc school rafted down the Magpie River for a week. The original idea, set up by Roy Dupuis, was to introduce the Magpie River and its wild natural environment to teenagers from urban areas as part of a documentary. The 10 participating students are Emma Bernard, Lucian Popovici, Simone Jones-Beaudin, Chelsea Bélanger, Amélie Duho Drapeau, Ela Zeynep Akbas, Alexandre Cornet Lyonnais, Arbab Idrees, Jin Park and Phillip Bedros-Zavodni.