Christmas Mountains

Christmas Mountains
Highest peak	Mount Dasher ( 748  m )
location	Northumberland County in New Brunswick ( Canada )
Coordinates	47 ° 12 ′  N , 66 ° 44 ′  W Coordinates: 47 ° 12 ′  N , 66 ° 44 ′  W

The Christmas Mountains are a series of rounded peaks in the northern part of the Canadian province of New Brunswick . They belong to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains . The approximately 35 km long ridge, together with the mountain range of Mount Carleton, forms the southern part of the Highlands Ecoregion . The headwaters of the North Pole Stream and the Little Southwest Miramichi River are located in the Christmas Mountains . At 820 meters, the highest point in the maritime provinces of Canada, Mount Carleton, is located 25 km north of the Christmas Mountains.

North Pole Stream

The peaks were named in 1964 by the surveyor Arthur F. Wightman, who, inspired by the North Pole Stream flowing here , remembered the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas when the song Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer was played on his office radio has been.

The Christmas Mountains include the following ten peaks:

• North Pole Mountain (688 m) 47 ° 12 ′  N , 66 ° 40 ′  W
• Mount St. Nicholas (615 m) 47 ° 10 ′  N , 66 ° 40 ′  W
• Mount Dasher (748 m) 47 ° 12 ′  N , 66 ° 44 ′  W.
• Mount Dancer (671 m) 47 ° 10 ′  N , 66 ° 43 ′  W.
• Mount Prancer (575 m) 47 ° 8 ′  N , 66 ° 41 ′  W.
• Mount Vixen (652 m) 47 ° 8 ′  N , 66 ° 43 ′  W.
• Mount Comet (548 m) 47 ° 7 ′  N , 66 ° 39 ′  W.
• Mount Cupid (476 m) 47 ° 9 ′  N , 66 ° 37 ′  W
• Mount Donder (729 m) 47 ° 11 ′  N , 66 ° 36 ′  W.
• Mount Blitzen (669 m) 47 ° 11 ′  N , 66 ° 38 ′  W

In addition to North Pole Mountain and Mount St. Nicolas , the naming of the other eight peaks goes back to the reindeer that pulls Santa Claus ' sleigh in the 1823 poem The Night before Christmas , published anonymously .

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came,
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name:

Now Dasher ! Now dancer ! Now, Prancer and Vixen !
On, Comet ! On, Cupid ! On, Dunder and Blixem !
To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!

The names of the reindeer Dunder and Blixem later changed first to Donder , then to Donner und Blitzen . In 1939, a poem by Robert L. May added another reindeer to the team , Rudolph . This reindeer served as the template for the Christmas carol Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Johnny Marks and is the most famous reindeer of the team. However, no summit of the Christmas Mountains was dedicated to him. In his proposal to the commission responsible for the official naming, the Geographical Names Board of Canada , Wightman initially named Mount St. Nicolas as Mount Rudolph . The name was rejected by the commission as too commercial and replaced with Mount St. Nicolas , which the commission accepted.

Development

Until the mid-1990s, the area around the Christmas Mountains was poorly developed and economically not covered. The area belongs to the Crown Land, which is scarce in New Brunswick . The New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources managed the property as part of a vast stretch of forest in the northern part of the province. The Christmas Mountains were largely untouched primary forest of the New England-Acadian Forests , which was unique to northeastern North America.

Most of the jungle of Acadia was cleared after the Canadian paper company Repap received the license to log from the Department of Natural Resources in the mid-1990s . Local residents, indigenous peoples and environmentalists had tried unsuccessfully for years to prevent the deforestation . They could only achieve that two small ecological reserves and a “protected area” were established far outside the region. Repap built forest roads and started clearing. A severe storm in November 1994 caused further deforestation in the Christmas Mountains. In 2000, UPM-Kymmene from Finland bought Repap . At that time, most of the old forest had already been cut down. Fornebu Lumber, a subsidiary of UMOE Solar from Norway, has held the license since 2009 and continues to clear the wood of the Christmas Mountains.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chapter 7, 1. Highlands Ecoregion (PDF, 2.9 MB) Government of New Brunswick. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Of Wood and Wilderness: The Story of the Christmas Mountains - Saltscapes Magazine. In: saltscapes.com. Saltscapes Magazine, accessed December 16, 2017 (UK English). 
3. ^ New Brunswick "What's in a Name". In: new-brunswick.net. Retrieved December 17, 2017 . 
4. ^ North Pole Mountain . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
5. ^ Mount St. Nicholas . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
6. ↑ Mount Dasher . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
7. ↑ Mount Dancer . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
8. ^ Mount Prancer . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
9. ↑ Mount Vixen . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
10. ↑ Mount Comet . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
11. ↑ Mount Cupid . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
12. ↑ Mount Donder . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
13. ↑ Mount Blitzen . In: peakery.com . ( peakery.com ).
14. ↑ Remembering the Christmas Mountains . In: NB Media Co-op . ( nbmediacoop.org ).