If you ask his son, Dr. George Cook was in love with the forest and now 904 acres of it will bear his name.
“Well it maintains the land and the kind of natural beauty that he appreciated so much even when he wasn’t actively working in the woods,” Steven Cook said of his father.
“Every time my brothers and I would go out with a chainsaw, he’d come along. He became a little less mobile as the years went by and he would maybe just walk on the road, or just sit by the roadside and he just loved it. So we knew how much it meant to him.”
The Nature Conservancy of Canada announced the creation of the Dr. George Cook Nature Reserve in Tatamagouche, N.S., on Wednesday, after Steven and two of his brothers decided to donate the land.
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Located in the Cobequid Hills of central Nova Scotia, the property was the site of a 25,000-tree commercial maple syrup operation, known as Dr. Cook’s Maple Ridge Farm.
Cook grew up in Urbania, N.S., where he worked his family’s woodlot as a young man, planting the seed of his lifelong devotion to the forest.
After serving in the Second World War, Cook attended medical school eventually becoming a surgeon in Truro, N.S. In the 1970s, he bought the piece of land that would eventually become the maple farm, which he ran for 30 years on top of his surgical practice.
Steven says that his father was always highly invested in his side-business, often personally delivering shipments to stores all over the province.
The massive donation, which is near New Annan, at the headwaters of the French River which supplies Tatamagouche with its water, is the largest conservancy project for Nature Conservancy of Canada in the last five years. Craig Smith, the Nova Scotia program director of the NCC, said the donation opens up many educational and recreational opportunities for the site.
“In general, the conservation of sites like this provides an opportunity for us to get outside and recreate or even just enjoy being in nature. We do hope over time, through our management and planning process to explore the possibilities of the site including maybe the development of a trail system, the installation of interpretive signage and the promotion of the site,” Smith said.
Smith added that it will be approximately a year until the first steps are taken on any plans for the nature reserve.
Other than its role in the watershed of the surrounding region, the reserve also provides habitat for the endangered Nova Scotia mainland moose, as well as bears and bobcats. Two at-risk bird species — the Canada Warbler and Eastern Wood-Pewee — also call the area home.
With the creation of the natural reserve, Smith says that the complex ecosystems of the area will now be permanently protected.
“The quality of the forest ecosystems on the site is also extraordinary,” he said.
“It means that they will be conserved perpetually. So the site will remain in a natural state forever. It will be carefully stewarded and managed by the Nature Conservancy of Canada — ecological processes will be allowed to unfold and the ecosystems will become more and more supportive of wildlife over time.”