One of the ponds on the 20-acre quarry site where more than 80 species of birds visit or nest every year. More than 20 kinds of mammals can also be found here along with frogs, turtles, garter snakes and several species of small freshwater fish. See 2017 report by Richard Elliot & Kate Bredin
The Town of Tantramar is moving ahead with the development of a municipal park in Sackville’s old Pickard quarry.
The park will include a network of walking trails looping around quarry ponds, a 5-6 car parking lot off Charlotte Street, a wheelchair-accessible lookout and a footbridge crossing a small waterfall.
“The concept of the park would be a natural trail surface, a single-track, natural surface,” Matt Pryde, the town’s recreation director told Tantramar council at its meeting yesterday.
He explained that the town will use the $40,000 allocated for the park in this year’s capital budget to construct the small parking lot and a wheelchair accessible trail leading to a lookout over a cliff face and pond.
He said the Tantramar Outdoor Club would develop the walking trail network with the help of Marc Leger, trails co-ordinator for the Southeast Regional Service Commission and Tantramar Heritage Trust will design interpretive panels on the history of the quarry as well as its function nowadays as part of Sackville’s flood control system.
Pryde added that the town is hoping to receive money from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and New Brunswick’s Regional Development Corporation to build the waterfall bridge and replace old metal, safety fences with wooden, farm-style ones.
Rough map
Council saw this rough map showing the looping trail network in red, the parking lot off Charlotte St. (bottom left), the small, wheelchair accessible lookout area near the waterfall bridge. A second park entrance off Quarry Lane is marked in yellow (centre right) with an additional lookout at the top of the map
Pryde said staff are still working out estimates for the total cost of the project which could be completed over the next two to three years.
The town allocated its $40,000 share of the costs after hearing a presentation last September from Richard Elliot on behalf of the Tantramar Outdoor Club.
To read Matt Pryde’s notes on his presentation to town council, click here.
Matt Pryde will work on any project EXCEPT the new Tantramar Skate Park Project which a youth group presented to town council and mayor as an ask in 2013 .. the fact that this has to be brought up.. again.. by me.. shows how pathetic the parks and rec. dept are and how little vision they have… So what is the deal here folks? Uh.. we don’t have enough trails and ponds and boardwalks and parks already for the nature loving walkers? Come on… I love to walk the trails too but continually bumping this concrete skatepark project is just ridiculous and shows a lack of professionalism by Pryde. Mayor Black has already been reminded to get this project going too.. what do I have to do? Run for Mayor next time to put this one on the top of their “get it done list”?