Habitat Restoration

The courses of the Sackville River and its feeder streams have been modified and straightened over the years. This has produced long stretches where the depth is uniform.

To support a healthy, diverse aquatic community, a river course must include areas that vary in current speed, depth and bottom composition.

Deep pools provide
- Shelter from predators
- An unfrozen refuge in winter
Areas of gravel bottom are required by trout and salmon for spawning beds

Our restoration activities are intended to mitigate past damage to the Sackville River habitat by helping the river return to as natural a state as possible.

River Restoration 2025 - Drain Lake Brook

Continuing our restoration project on one of McCabe Lake's tributaries (which include Thompson Run and the main Sackville River), our annual restoration project in 2025 involved the installation of hand-installed rocksills and deflectors in Drain Lake Brook in the Indigo Shores subdivision of Middle Sackville.

The project also involved blocking off braided channels (formed by past flood events) to concentrate flow in the main channel, pool establishment and improvement, thalweg work (to define a low-flow channel) debris jam removal, and general improvements in flow and pool depth.

This work was done between June and September 2025 and was completed with the help of three post-secondary students hired through both federal and provincial wage subsidy programs (Canada Summer Jobs and the SKILL program). The project was funded by the Graham and Susan Smith Giving Foundation, the ECHO Foundation, the Halifax Foundation, the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's Outdoor Fund, the Joan Feynman Climate Change Fund, the McLean Foundation, the NSSA Adopt-a-Stream Program, and the HRM Community Grants Program.

Here is the link to the report for this project: River Restoration 2025 Final Report

Below are pictures and mapping from this 2025 project.