KAPOA Winter Newsletter 2025

Happy New Year & Important News!

We at KAPOA would like to wish you and your families a very Happy 2025 New Year!

While you’re still considering resolutions for the coming year, let’s talk about some volunteer asks from KAPOA:

After 3 very successful years of taking KAPOA’s Poker Run event up a very big notch, Bruce Willmer is stepping down as the event chair. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Bruce, his wife Kathy, their family and his organizing committee for the planning and hard work that brought this from a small fundraiser to one of the hospital foundation’s largest annual fundraisers for the past 3 years. Bruce reached out into the local business community and increased sponsorship, product representation and media presence for the Poker Run. He leaves behind a well-oiled machine with sponsors already considering their involvement for this year, and a participant base that is not going away. However, without an event chair for 2025, the Poker Run will not happen. The SFVH Foundation is a small group of 3 that cannot take on the management of this event, in addition to the other fundraising projects that they oversee. If you or someone you know is willing and able to take over Bruce’s role as event chair, we and the foundation would be very appreciative. Please reach out to kapoacares@gmail.com if you are interested and require more information to make your decision. The event would be held on Saturday July 26 or another date of your choosing.
One of the new projects that KAPOA would like to undertake in the coming years is to introduce wake/speed reduction signage along the Madawaska River. We cannot undertake any wake/speed reduction signage on the lower Madawaska River without involvement from the waterfront community, including residents along Ohio Road. We currently have limited KAPOA representation along Ohio Road. If you or someone you know is concerned about the impacts of boat wakes on the lower Madawaska River and would like to participate in a project to introduce educational signage along the waterfront, please reach out to kapoacares@gmail.com.
Other projects that KAPOA is considering include water hazards marking in the river and lake, and fire pumps at a variety of locations around our membership area. A small number of volunteers for each of these efforts are needed to make these projects a reality. Again, please reach out to kapoacares@gmail.com if you might like to participate. If we don’t obtain any assistance, these projects will not proceed.
We do still have 2 open Director positions that we need to fill, please consider helping us out for a few hours per year. Many hands make light work, plus it’s a great way to meet the KAPOA member community and surrounding associations with like interests and challenges!

Website Co-Administrator
Communications Coordinator
A variety of Area Membership Reps
A KAPOA representative to virtually attend Madawaska Valley Municipal meetings

Please consider volunteering some of your time to keep KAPOA thriving, by reaching out to kapoacares@gmail.com.

Recap of 2024

You may have found that 2024 passed by so quickly you can hardly remember what happened, so we’d like to just take a few minutes to reflect on the productive year we had within our KAPOA community:

Poker Run 2024 (12^th annual) – This year’s event, held Sat July 27^th, was another smashing success, raising $34,000 to help purchase telemetric equipment for the St. Francis Memorial Hospital Emergency Department. The generosity of participants, sponsors, and especially event chair Bruce Willmer and his crew of volunteers, made this event happen & the significant donation possible. 53 boats participated this year with 250 people attending the beach celebration, that’s impressive!

Regatta 2024 (going strong since 1972?) – New leadership (thank you Greg Zdzienicki), new equipment and some fresh perspective made this year’s regatta another event to remember in 2024. We saw more participants than ever in the swimming, canoeing, sandcastle building and tug-of-war events, and the day was glorious. Greg’s got more ideas to make next year even better, and we can’t wait! Thank you to the volunteers who jumped in to make the day memorable for kids and parents alike.

Carlton University Field Studies Partnership – KAPOA arranged for 10 seasonal & local residents to be interviewed by third year students in Carlton U’s Geography and Environmental Studies programs in October. The field course was based out of the Madawaska Kanu Centre for 4 days and provided 25 students with the opportunity to conduct interviews, environmental sampling (water, soil, plant) and other research in the field. Interview participants were asked for their perspectives on land ownership, changes in recreational property ownership since Covid, climate change related challenges, water quality, and water management issues. Final reports were submitted and graded by the end of the fall term, and a sample report has been shared with the interview participants. Participants who were interviewed all commended the program, the student’s professionalism and their eagerness to learn. Plans are in place for KAPOA and Carlton U. to partner again in fall 2025, and new interview participants will be sought.

Walleye & Trout Spawning Bed Rehabilitation Program – Melissa Dakers of Watersheds Canada was toured around Kamaniskeg Lake, Madawaska River and Negeek Lake in September by Duncan and Lynne MacLean to review MNRF identified fish habitat to be considered for rehabilitation in 2025. Watersheds Canada will oversee the preparation and placement of brush bundles this year – stay tuned for dates and deets, we will need volunteers.

Bancroft Area Stewardship Council (BASC) Programming –KAPOA was approached by BASC and the Lake St. Peter Property Owners Association (LSPPOA) in early 2024 to support their “Wonders of Wetlands” program. The day featured 27 presenter booths with Watersheds Canada and LSPPOA representing Hastings Highlands Interlake with the objective of providing quality, hands-on opportunities to learn the value and importance of wetland environments. This year boasted the largest attendance with 340 kids from Grades 3 and 4, 9 schools and 27 learning stations. KAPOA in conjunction with 4 of our Hastings Highlands Interlake Association partners donated $1,500.00 to this valuable & interactive educational experience. We’re looking forward to supporting this event again in 2026 (it’s conducted every 2 years) and maybe attending with our own booth.

Lake Partner Program (LPP) Water Sampling – KAPOA continued this past season to provide water sampling data to the LPP, who has surpassed the “1,000 sites sampled” mark in 2024 thanks to associations like ours. In addition to publishing it’s Lake by Lake Data Reports in the fall which KAPOA monitors, LPP also expanded it’s youth outreach last year (see the new youth targeted promotional videos here) , attended a dozen lake association meetings, and shared it’s data with the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) to identify lakes with high or rapidly increasing total phosphorus levels, and to understand how road salt affects lakes.

Well, that’s a wrap on 2024. We are looking forward to more regatta fun, some new KAPOA initiatives, and hopefully a (lucky) 13^th annual Poker Run in the coming year. But we can’t do it without membership involvement. We hope you’ll consider it.

Your KAPOA Team