The fight to protect
Lake Tamaracouta ecosystem

Tamaracouta is ideally situated to educate the public about the species, functions and beauty of nature

By Carole Reed

August 7, 2025

The fight to protect the former Tamaracouta Scout Reserve (TSR) is over.

As announced at a public meeting held in Mille-Isles on July 19, The Nature Conservancy of Canada and the town of Mille-Isles, QC, now own 82% of what was once TSR. The beach area campground and buildings are now owned by Eric Desroches, who also owns Cocrea and Camp Bruchési near Saint-Hippolyte, about 35 km away.

As announced at a public meeting held in Mille-Isles on July 19, The Nature Conservancy of Canada and the town of Mille-Isles, QC, now own 82% of what was once TSR.

The Nature Conservancy is giving public access to the trails while maintaining strict conservation status. Karinne Peloffy, the President of Les Partenaires de Tamaracouta et ses environs, is hoping that children will have access to the lakefront camp in the heart of this environmental treasure.

Camp Tamaracouta in the municipality of Milles Isles combines multiple ecosystems, including old and secondary growth forests, meadows, lakes, streams, wetlands, and breathtaking waterfalls. It is the heart of a beautiful wildlife corridor, the source of the Bonniebrook River, which eventually flows into the Riviere du Nord near Mirabel.

map of Lake Tamaracouta ecosystem
Lake Tamaracouta is the primary source of the Bonniebrook riverine system. The system originates in four large lakes: Lake Kanawana due north, feeding Lake Wilson; Lac des-Bec-Scie to the north west; and Lac Ivan to the west. The Bonniebrook River flows from Lake Tamaracouta directly into Dawson Lake below it and then travels south to the North River just above Mirabel.

In addition to being a beautiful summer camp, Tamaracouta is ideally situated to educate children and adults alike about the species, functions and beauty of nature.

This has been the dream of Charlie MacLeod since 2010, when camp director Alison Bentley hired him as the ecology director at TSR. When he discovered that the camp was in dire financial straits, Charlie proposed the creation of a public environmental science education center to increase revenue.

To prepare his proposal, Charlie commissioned and conducted valuable environmental and prefeasibility studies, all at no cost to Scouts Canada.

Bill Pollack, a semi-retired Forest Engineer, working pro bono and assisted by Charlie, wrote a 213-page Forest Management Plan of Tamaracouta. The plan gives sound conservation advice and lists all species on the former scout reserve.

Matt Madison, who was at the time the environmental inspector for the city of Gore, worked with Charlie to create an environmental assessment report of the camp’s topology, hydrology, vegetation communities and wildlife habitat.

In addition, Matt suggested that students enrolled in the Master’s in Environmental Science program at the Université de Sherbrooke could, as part of the independent component of their degree, conduct a pre-feasibility study of the Tamaracouta Environmental Science Camp (TESC) project. The students produced an excellent study detailing costs, communication and public relations modalities, sources of revenue, and conservation activities.

Charlie’s proposal was endorsed by all nine municipalities in the MRC Argenteuil, along with several environmental and educational institutions.

‘On December 1, 2018, the oldest continually running scout camp in the world, Tamaracouta Scout Reserve, was closed and put up for sale.’

The TESC proposal was submitted in 2013.

While Charlie was researching and writing his proposal, the camp had already become largely a one-way revenue stream to Scouts Canada’s head office in Ottawa, with only a little trickling back to support staff, campers and programs.

Camp director Alison Bentley was a strong advocate of TESC, both for its educational possibilities and for the financial boost it could give the struggling camp. But by 2014, the proposal had not even been acknowledged by Scouts Canada. In 2015, Charlie joined the board of the Green Coalition and left Scouting.

On December 1, 2018, the oldest continually running scout camp in the world, Tamaracouta Scout Reserve, was closed and put up for sale.

It seems in retrospect that Scouts Canada had been planning all along to sell TSR to the highest bidder. Scouts Canada was losing money due to declining membership and settlements for child abuse litigation. To date, the organization has closed over ninety camps across Canada and sold ten of them.

Scouters and former scouters alike were devastated. Local Laurentian residents were concerned about what would happen to the area. And the Green Coalition, along with other environmental groups in southern Quebec, did not want to see such a valuable ecosystem destroyed by development.

At this point, local resident and former Quebec environment minister Tom Mulcair got in touch with Charlie to share his concerns about rampant real estate development in the lower Laurentians. His call encouraged Charlie, whose dealings with Scouts Canada had so worn him down that he was on the point of giving up his attempts to protect the campsite from being sold to developers.

Charlie brought together a powerful team to protect the land, including the first Quebec Environment Minister, Clifford Lincoln.

‘As Charlie’s Girl Friday, I looked on in awe as he convinced the municipality of Mille-Isles to rezone parts of Tamaracouta for environmental and heritage protection and to retain some areas for camping and recreational uses.’

I first worked with Charlie on a winter ecosystem camp for Venturer Scouts. And I have worked with him ever since as a fellow board member and now as my co-president of the Green Coalition. So in 2019, to save a valuable ecosystem and to honour my late father, a King’s Scout at Tamaracouta in the 1930s, I vowed to help Charlie protect Tamaracouta.

As Charlie’s Girl Friday, I looked on in awe as he convinced the municipality of Mille-Isles to rezone parts of Tamaracouta for environmental and heritage protection and to retain some areas for camping and recreational uses.

I watched Charlie bring together municipal mayors and reach out to provincial politicians to fund the conservation of the camp. He also turned to adjacent land owners, one of whom, the Groome family, had donated land on the northwest side of the camp to the Nature Conservancy of Canada. And he approached the Nature Conservancy directly.

I assisted in organizing a group founded by Charlie called Les Partenaires de Tamaracouta et ses environs. The group consists largely of members of the surrounding Laurentian communities, some Scouters and former Scouters, and Charlie and me representing the Green Coalition. Our president is Karinne Peloffy, a kick-ass environmental lawyer, former director of the Quebec Center for Environmental Law, and project lead for Eco Justice’s sustainable finance work.

I worked with the Green Coalition to hold Scouts Canada accountable for conserving the land and for assuring that local children have access to it.

I welcomed the Tamaracouta Lake Association when Charlie asked them to become a member group of the Green Coalition. President Lyne Lanthier and her team worked with Les Partenaires to attend council meetings and gather community support. Also, along with other residents, members of the Lake Association had been doing their best to patrol the camp. But without the help of Scouts Canada, they could not stop the invaders who robbed, vandalized and burned it.

I read the haunting article about the camp deterioration written by Rick Moffat, former CJAD news editor, journalist, and part of the camp patrol.

‘…I watched everyone stand up and applaud Charlie MacLeod at the July 19 meeting when we learned that the precious ecosystem is protected and that Camp Tamaracouta will live on.’

I endured the heartbreak of the collapse of Jubilee Hall, the vandalism and water damage to heritage buildings, the damage to the stuffed birds and animals in the ecology center, the destruction of the longhouse by arson, and the theft of our totem pole carved for Scouts in 1947 by renowned Kwakiutl artist Chief Mungo Martin.

I was dismayed when Scouts Canada rejected a combined bid by the Municipality of Mille-Isles, the Groome Family and the Nature Conservancy that would have opened the campsite to local youth and to other camping organizations, including Scouts Canada.

I lived through the many months of suspense after negotiations with Scouts Canada became private.

And I watched everyone stand up and applaud Charlie MacLeod at the July 19 meeting when we learned that the precious ecosystem is protected and that Camp Tamaracouta will live on.

Scouters and former Scouters were hoping until the end that the camp and its long heritage could also be conserved. Eric Desroches has promised to preserve the forest chapel and the heritage buildings, along with the older cairn where my father placed a rock in the 1930s when he became a Knight of Tamara and the newer cairn where my grandson placed his rock when he became a Knight of Tamara eighty years later.

My hope is that youth and adults alike can learn about our environment at Camp Tamaracouta through the eyes of some of our more experienced environmentalists.

And my dream is that Camp Tamaracouta becomes the heart of a protected eco-corridor, the entire Bonniebrook riverine system.

Feature image: view of Lake Tamaracouta, courtesy of Friends of Tamaracouta

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Carole Reed spent her childhood in Pointe Claire, climbing trees, playing in the woods, and biking through farmland. She became an environmentalist in 1972 after reading Silent Spring. Now retired from teaching, she is devoting the rest of her life to saving the planet for her great-grandchildren.