Quebec Life List

The province of Quebec is just a hop, skip and a jump across the Ottawa River from where I live. Most of my ode-hunting has been conducted within Gatineau Park, a magnificent park which is the largest natural green space in the region and can be easily accessed right from downtown Ottawa. Situated within the Canadian Shield, the geography of its 361 square kilometres is distinctly different from that of the land south of the Ottawa River, resulting in a much more varied biodivesity. It contains gentle hills, steep escarpments, flatlands, serene lakes, marshes and rushing streams, all of which make it a fabulous place to see a variety of odes. The Sugarbush Trail is a particular favourite of mine, as is the Dunlop picnic area for its variety of spiketails and clubtails.

My furthest expeditions have taken me up north to the southeastern corner of La Verendrye Wildlife Reserve near Grand-Remous and Ile Mulligan almost directly across the river from the Morris Island Conservation Area. These excursions, planned by Chris Traynor, were undertaken with the goal of finding uncommon species such as Common Sanddragons, Somatochlora emeralds, snaketails, and other creek-loving clubtails; the Ile Mulligan expedition was an exploratory one in which we reached the island by crossing the longest snowmobile bridge in the world (a former train bridge) on foot from the Ontario side. That was an incredibly fun outing unbelievably rich in odonatofauna – soaring Prince Baskettails, mating Swift River Cruisers, an emerging Dragonhunter, and even an ovipositing Cyrano Darner made it one of our best Quebec excursions ever.