Sheila Thomson says her love of Gatineau Park propelled her into two decades of volunteer work for environmental causes.
When the park was threatened with large-scale development in the early 1970s, Thomson was converted from a nature lover to an activist.
"I felt I owned it, you see," the Ottawa woman says. She had been using its hiking and ski trails from the time she was a young child.
Her upbringing taught her: "Don't complain, unless you are willing to do something about it."
So Thomson did something: she organized with other activists what was to become the Ottawa-Hull Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. The group successfully fought plans for development in the park, and Thomson, 65, has gone on to become one of the area's most dedicated environmental volunteers.
Thomson — mycological or mushroom expert, grandmother, daughter of Arctic explorer W. H. B. Hoare — has been in the thick of other battles waged nationally and locally by the Society: the battle to preserve the South Moresby wilderness in British Columbia from development and logging; the campaign to preserve the integrity of the Thelon Game Sanctuary in the Northwest Territories from resource development; creation of
the Rideau Trail; and creation of the Madawaska River provincial park.
Thomson has also given her moral support to the efforts of the Gatineau Park Protection Coalition, of which the Society was a founding member, to block renewed development threats in Gatineau Park.
Thomson, a mycological technician, has spent most of her life studying and lecturing about wild mushrooms.
She lectures frequently to nature groups and horticultural societies.
Now retired from Agriculture Canada, Thomson's professional interests parallel her love for the wilderness. Every year since she married Harry Thomson there's been at least one canoe trip into remote areas of Canada, often with one or more of their
four children.
Thomson says fighting for the wilderness means you often get labelled as selfish.
"They don't understand that when you destroy wilderness it's forever. No amount of money will bring it back.
"You can't compromise on the wilderness."
