Pokeshaw Park: Growing number of travellers discover New Brunswick's tiny secret

The people who run what may go down as New Brunswick'stiniest provincial park hear onecomment more than any other:"I never knew this was here."

It's what New Brunswickerssay when they stumbleonPokeshaw Park, about 38 kilometres northeast of Bathurst.

"Very often tourists drive from Bathurst to the Acadian Peninsula, toCaraquet, without stopping along here, without realizing what the beauty of the coastline is," said Kevin Whelton, the park's president.

At around 1.7 acres,the park is easy to miss. But what catches the eye aretheimposing rock formations known as sea stacks jutting out of the Bay of Chaleur.

New Brunswick's tiny provincial park is completely run by volunteers

3 years ago

Duration 2:34

Pokeshaw Park, on New Brunswick's North Shore, is only 1.7 acres, but since volunteers took over the stewardship, its drawn a lot of attention.

The two towers of limestone serve as anestingground for hundreds of seabirds, which are eye level with tourists who can observe them from the mainland cliff sheer about 80metresaway.

Below the cliffs and sea stacks, PokeshawBrook cuts a white sand beach in halfandfeeds into the bay with walking trails on either side.

While the park is owned by the province, it's been managed and maintained by locals from the surrounding communities ofPokeshawand Black Rock, who pride themselves on taking better care of it than government did.

"It was run by the province in the 1990s, 2000s, around that time, and then they didn't run it anymore," said MaryAnne Riordon-Barry, a retired teacher and now a park volunteer. It was just sitting here.

"So, we leased it. We have a20-yearlease on thepark,and we've been working on it every year.Soit's a community affair."

Riordon-Barry has been working for years on the history of the park, researching family lineages of those who once farmed and fished the area.

The parknow hosts a cabin dubbed the "trading post" inhonourof the one that once stood in Pokeshaw.

A small obelisk sits in the middle of the park, with the dozens of mostly Irish family names of those who once called the area home. Placards detailing the Indigenous history, as well as the importance of the early fishing industry, also dot the park.

In 2019 a boardwalk was installed giving tourists a lookout over the cliffs.

According toRiordon-BarryPokeshaw Park was the "guineapig" for a program that would have seen14 more boardwalk lookouts planned for around the province by the previous Liberal government. When the Progressive Conservatives came to power, they scrapped the plan.

The volunteer group was able to finish the boardwalk, but it's the only one that came to fruition.

It's made all the difference, however. The community's efforts, combined with the addition of the boardwalk, haveledto an explosion of tourists, according to Whelton, president of the Black Rock Recreation Council, which manages the park.

"I would say between 15,000 and 20,000 [a year,] whereas before we might have had one or two thousand," said Whelton.

The parkemploys five or six summer students ayear, taking donations at the entrance for upkeep and maintenance costs.

Erosion is a constant worry, asit is along much of the North Shore. But Whelton saidbothPokeshawand Black Rock take a lot of pride in growing the tiny park into what it has become today.

"I think the big thing is the local interest, the local pride, the local volunteers, and the participation from the community," Whelton said.