Online Maps (Chain Lake Wilderness)

Blomidon Naturalists Society Habitat Protection Committee

Chain Lake Wilderness Area- Map of Observed Species at Risk

This is a QGIS Map of the observations recorded by ACCDC, iNaturalists, BNS bioblitzs and local naturalists (Updated: July 2026 - 246 observations).

This map also shows the N.S. DNRR's Harvest Plans in the Chain Lakes Wilderness area.

Harvest Plans East of Chain Lakes

This map is interactive and shows recently added NSDNRR Harvest Plans with pop-up data on tree species, height and area.

Forest Disturbance Maps
Kings County Chain Lakes Wilderness Area Environs and
Annapolis County Goldsmith and Beals Brook Wilderness Areas Environs

The Data Sources for the above Maps

Chain Lakes Wilderness Area Names

Google Maps with and Index of commonly used location names. You can use this map to get familiar with the area..

Wet Habitat Areas in the Chain Lake Wilderness

Map of the Streams, Lakes, Bogs, and Wet Areas in the Proposed Chain Lake Wilderness
This is a jpeg (static map) of the wet area areas and stream flows. Use it as an index map for the more detailed maps below. Click on the link or the thumbnail map to see the full sized jpg. This can be zoomed in and out with Ctrl plus the mouse wheel.
Shell Camp Lake Wet AreasWet Areas near Chain LakeWet Areas SW of Gully LakeWet Areas between Gully Lakes
Wet Areas near Chain Lake Wet Areas west of Gully Lake Wet Areas between Gully Lakes
Map the Wildlife Observation on iNaturalists for the Chainl Lake Proposed Wilderness Area
There are over a thousand observations listed as in the Chain Lake area as defined by the boundaries on the iNaturalist project. As you will see from the map, many are outside the adopted boundary for the Proposed Chain Lake Wilderness area. Some of those observation include Species at Risk and those have been emphasized with a different marker (with a star)., Click on the marker to bring up a dialog box with the observation data. You will not that at least one SAR observation is in a Crownland Harvest Plan. (blue felt lichen). If you look at the Chain Lake Wilderness Project on iNaturalist (inaturalist.org) it only shows about 173 observations - I am an editor and can not see why that is the case.

Detail Soil Map of the Chain Lakes Area

 This is data from the Soil Landscapes of Canadia (SLC), available from Agriculture Canada. The definitions of quantities mentioned in the popup are given in pages on the SLC website. Most useful are the Soil Name and Soil Layer Tables.
Multi-layer map of an Open Bog east of Chain Lake
Wetlands in and near forested areas are very important because of their value to wildlife. One particular bog is near a recently delcared Harvest Plan. This bog on Wentzell Brook and surrounding area should be surveyed. The map includes Forest Inventory information . The various layers of the map can be turned on and off to view the available informaion. When the Forest Inventory layer is active, hovering on the edge of an inventory section will yield a popup with species, height, area, and canopy cover. The inventory is old (2012) so these only yield indicators of what in on that section
Harvest Map Plans from NSDNRR for January 2025 for Kings and Annapolis County and showing Proposed Wilderness Preserves

NSDNRR Proposed Harvest Area for Kings County

This is an satellite map with area boundary shown in white dashed outline. The orange outlines are the forest inventory areas (2012) as determined by NSDNRR. Click on the boundary to get a popup with information. The legend is shown by clicking on the square in the upper right corner.

Upper Gully Lake is in the lower left corner of the map and there is a woods road in from the main road on the right. You can see that the woods to the SE of the planned harvest has been partially cut in strips.

If you read the forest inventory information, most of the woods is red spruce, black spruce, and balsam fir. There are no major steams in the area so it is high and dry. Note that there are excluded areas within the plan and these are areas appear to be higher rocky areas.

I have created a georeferenced PDF map that can be uploaded into Avenza that shows the location on both this proposed harvest plan and the three areas in the Chain Lakes Wilderness Area that were published in Oct 2024. This is a 32 MB file. CLICK ME to DOWNLOAD THE MAP

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