One year ago, wildfires decimated Nopiming Provincial Park in eastern Manitoba, torching cottaging communities, backcountry campgrounds and popular canoe routes.

But as the park and its boreal ecosystem recovers — a process that will take several decades — Manitoba Wilderness Committee campaigner Eric Reder believes the province should embrace the opportunity to curtail industrial activities within park borders and establish more robust protection for its natural and recreational assets.

“The Nopiming Provincial Park that existed prior to 2025 is gone,” a Wilderness Committee report released Thursday said. “Only an all-of-society recovery solution can bring back what we’ve lost.”

To the Wilderness Committee, that whole-of-society solution involves a moratorium on new industrial activities, a commitment to conserve habitat for local caribou herds, increased engagement with First Nations whose lands overlap the park and investment in recreational infrastructure, including backcountry trails and canoe routes. 

“Doing so will allow the park to serve both nature and people,” the report said. “Manitoba’s outdoor way of life is at stake.”

Meanwhile, the province says it is “currently focused on immediate wildfire recovery needs such as restoring access and services, and on prioritizing initiatives like FireSmart with park users.” Restoration activities in the park are ongoing, a provincial spokesperson said in an email statement, and the province is “actively listening to input from many sources, including park users, residents, cottagers and environmental groups.”

Wildfire engulfed most of Nopiming Provincial Park and burned an area almost 8 times the size of Winnipeg

Nopiming Park’s 1,400-odd square kilometres of Canadian Shield are part of the world’s largest intact boreal forest and home to the province’s southernmost boreal caribou herd. The park features winding rivers popular with canoeists, placid lakes full of wild rice, tamarack bogs and lichen-coated rock outcroppings. 

It boasts a handful of designated campgrounds and backcountry trails, as well as several cottage subdivisions with a mix of permanent and seasonal residents. 

Nopiming Park also hosts hundreds of mineral claims staked by companies seeking gold and lithium, and is home to the Canadian Forces School of Survival and Aeromedical Training.

Much of that infrastructure has been damaged.

A lightning strike near the Bird River sparked the first fire on May 12, 2025. Over more than 200 days it grew to more than 3,500 square kilometres — almost eight times the size of Winnipeg — and engulfed the vast majority of the park. 

Park residents were evacuated for several weeks, some unable to return until late July. According to the provincial spokesperson, 21 cottages within the park were lost, a campground office near Black Lake was destroyed, several canoe routes were affected, trailhead facilities were destroyed and many remote campsites lost infrastructure such as bear boxes, picnic tables and fire pits. 

The military training site was evacuated, too, and several of its “administrative and storage structures … were subsequently damaged or destroyed,” according to a brief prepared for the Minister of National Defence in May 2025. 

While some campgrounds and trails re-opened this month, several backcountry campsites, trails and water routes remain closed until restoration work is complete.

“Nopiming Provincial Park visitors can expect a mix of reopenings and closures through the summer season as recovery work continues,” the provincial spokesperson said.

‘A park needs time to recover’: conservation advocate

After visiting Nopiming Park late last summer, Reder said he was struck by the extent of the damage to his familiar canoe routes and picnic spots.

“The ground was still smoking,” he said in an interview. “The thing that really struck me was that the fire was more comprehensive than we’re used to seeing.” 

Few pockets of boreal forest were unscathed by the burn, especially in what Reder calls “the wild heart” of the forest, which has long served as critical habitat for a herd of vulnerable boreal caribou. The threatened species relies on dense, treed areas for shelter and protection from predators, and are known to avoid clearcuts and disturbances. 

With so much of the forest destroyed, Reder’s biggest concern is protecting the habitat that remains.

“A park needs time to recover,” he said. “Stop the mineral exploration, get the military out of there … a couple of these recommendations are pretty straightforward ways to give peace to the park.” 

To limit further disturbance to sensitive, recovering vegetation, the committee recommends a moratorium on new industrial activity permits, and a permanent end to military training exercises. It also recommends limiting motorized activity such as all-terrain vehicles and outboard motors until caribou habitat use is better understood. 

An opportunity to rebuild — and prioritize recreation and nature

Reder said the fires also present an opportunity to restore the park in a way that prioritizes its recreational potential.

As the park rebuilds, the committee recommends more integration with the local Indigenous communities, including signage and programming produced in collaboration with First Nations that discusses the land’s traditional uses and history. It also recommends the province invest in “people-powered” recreational infrastructure, including trails, canoe routes and wayside stops.

Reder points to the government’s recent decision to re-open fire-damaged portions of the backcountry Mantario Trail, just south of Nopiming, as an example. The province had previously planned to keep the trail closed this summer, but has since announced it could re-open by the end of June as more than 500 volunteers have made “remarkable progress” restoring trail infrastructure. 

“The idea that Nopiming … should have a backcountry route, probably should get into people’s heads right now,” Reder said, adding the increased visibility following the fire has made it easier to plan possible trails. 

For cottages, the report recommends investing in FireSmart programs and limiting the size of human infrastructure to reduce potential losses from fire. 

“All recommendations will be considered as the province works to restore this beautiful area, and considers opportunities for post-fire recovery along with future enhancements and management opportunities,” the provincial spokesperson said.

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

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