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No hiking boots or bug spray are required for an initiative by the Nova Scotia Nature Trust that provides a new way to explore some of the province’s most delicate and rarely seen outdoor areas.
The non-profit conservation group has launched an online platform that now offers virtual tours of the Blanche Peninsula on the southwest coast of Shelburne County and the Plaister Cliffs along the Bras d’Or Lake in Cape Breton.
Those are two of the trust’s over 200 protected areas, which cover more than 14,000 hectares across the province. Protected lands are generally open to the public for activities such as hiking, fishing, paddling and birding, but some are more rugged wilderness areas that are less accessible to most people.
That’s where the idea came from for In Our Nature: The Hidden Wild, the online project that offers 360-degree images, videos and audio recordings of the areas, explaining the ecosystems’ wildlife and plants and the importance of the protected land.
“We invite people to come explore [protected areas] as much as possible,†said Anna Weinstein, the trust’s marketing and communications manager.
“But the reality is that it’s just not possible for a lot of reasons. Some of the land is inaccessible, some of the land is intact because it’s inaccessible. Some of it might have features that are just really better left to their own devices. And then people have personal reasons why getting out into nature might be hard.â€
Pandemic beginnings
Weinstein said the trust began working on virtual tours through a partnership with media company A for Adventure to bring nature to people who had realized during the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic how much they missed the outdoors.
“We just identified the kind of places we wanted to start with to really show off where we thought they could best take advantage of this kind of perspective and technology and storytelling technique,†she said.
The virtual tours allow people to explore areas such as the Plaister Cliffs that have sinkholes and other hazards that make it dangerous for people to trek through. They also reduce barriers by opening up lands to those who might not be able to visit due to mobility, socio-economic or other factors, Weinstein said.
“Nobody should be excluded from having a relationship with nature because of that,†she said.
A tour of a third location will be added to the platform in late June or early July, with more to follow in the future.
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