The municipality of Dundee Township inaugurated its new nautical centre on September 10.
Located along a canal on the shores of Lake Saint-François at Place Caza, a waterfront cottage and residential community, the water sports centre offers Dundee residents a new way to experience the water, local biodiversity, and the neighbouring national wildlife area.
“It’s a completely different perspective when you’re sitting on the water and looking back towards Dundee,” said mayor Daibhid Fraser. “It gives you a scope of where we are situated geographically, and there is a sense of peace that you can get when you’re on the water,” he added, noting the center provides ten single kayaks, two double kayaks, two canoes, and all necessary safety equipment for residents free of charge.
“It gives residents access, because a vast majority of the waterfront property from Dundee all the way to Sainte-Barbe is all private,” said Fraser, while explaining that the municipality owns the small piece of land at Place Caza where the centre, dock, and boat launch now sit. “People can go out for a paddle on the water and go wherever they want,” he added, noting the canal opens into the lake after about 500 metres. “It’s pretty incredible.”
Fraser was joined during the brief inauguration ceremony by Huntingdon MNA Carole Mallette and MRC du Haut-Saint-Laurent prefect Yves Métras, as well as members of the Dundee municipal council. The community-building project received $100,000 in provincial funding through the Fonds régions et ruralité (FRR) and the MRC’s Programme régional de soutien à la vitalisation.
The mayor confirmed the municipality has been working on the project for around two and a half years, before highlighting the work of different partners who contributed to the project, including the ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Habitation (MAMH), the MRC, the previous municipal administration in Dundee, and several community volunteers.
The inauguration represents a soft launch for the centre, which is technically now open. Reservation procedures for the equipment will soon be implemented, and the municipality is developing a safety system to allow users to communicate with authorities if issues arise on the water.
For now, the centre is open exclusively to Dundee residents. “We definitely want to keep this a local initiative,” said Fraser, who is wary about opening the centre to the general population. “We don’t want it to become public so that residents lose access,” he explained, while suggesting the municipality may be open to partnering in the future with nearby municipalities.