Kyle Lefort (left) and Jeremy Camus (right) standing behind a beaver dam on Aucoin's brook.
Week 2: July 8th – July 11th was yet another busy week for the Chéticamp River Salmon Association. Monday, the group did a quick session of tree identification for data collection purposes regarding the riparian zone and then started work in Aucoin’s brook, roughly 1km upstream from where the brook crosses the gypsum mines trail. The group worked on the removal of one partial blockage, and two of three beaver dams present in that section of the brook (the third dam will be removed early next week). The group was yet again up bright and early Tuesday morning to travel to Port Hastings to take an Emergency First Aid and AED training course with a representative from Saint John Ambulance. Wednesday was an extremely busy day for the Chéticamp River Salmon Association as the group did monitoring work on upper sections of Aucoin’s brook. With the help of Scott Aucoin, the group scaled several waterfalls in an attempt to locate the source of sediment, which has built up in lower sections of the brook - the source was not found. Thursday morning, part of the group cleaned debris blocking a culvert bridge, exposed and restored digger logs that had been buried by excess sediment and redirected channels that had gone astray due to the buildup of sediment in sections of Aucoin’s brook. The group then spent the afternoon on dry land catching up on office work (inventory, blogging, website construction/maintenance, etc.), and changed a tire on the “Salmon Mobile”, which had gone flat that morning.
Members of the Cheticamp River Salmon Association restoration team: Antoine Aucoin (left), Kyle Lefort (centre), and Jeremy Camus (right), while removing a beaver dam on Aucoin's brook.
Members of the Cheticamp River Salmon Association restoration team: Jillian Baker (left), biologist, Antoine Aucoin (centre), and Kyle Lefort (right) stop for a picture while doing monitoring/surveying work on Aucoin's Brook.