In 1972 I went to Newfoundland and, like many before me, left a piece of my heart. In fact, I nearly donated my whole body. That summer, I worked with three other students in Parks Canada's Wild River Survey. In those days, Newfoundland rivers teemed with salmon. People were warm and curious about us Canadians from "up along," with our aluminum canoes and freeze-dried rations. Pierre Trudeau, lover of wilderness canoeing, was Prime Minister; Canada seemed ready to lead the world in conservation. I dared to dream of a national system of wild rivers, of protecting our great waterways.

One day after ice-out, we landed at King George IV Lake, source of the Lloyds River in the heart of southwest Newfoundland. The Lloyds' first waves filled my face as our canoe submerged gracefully and delivered me to the bone-chilling torrent. This sort of thing didn't happen in university, and I was too stunned to react. Stern paddler Harry Collins saved my bacon, having learned enough dialect to shout: "Lord t'underin' Jaysus! Swim for your life, b'ye!"

A week later, sans food, axe and pride, we dragged our boats over a massive log boom at the head of Red Indian Lake. The shores of Newfoundland's longest lake were so choked with pulp logs that we couldn't land for 60 kilometres. Downstream, the Exploits River bed was paved with sunken logs.

By late June, we had discovered the dramatic scenery of the Long Range Mountains, just outside the newly designated Gros Morne National Park. But the Humber River was already heavily logged near its upper falls. The famous salmon stream was still beautiful, but when we paddled past the bloated corpse of a caribou, I wondered what it portended. Now I know. Since 1972, the upper Humber has been so ravaged that local pilots compare it to Hiroshima.

It seemed too late to find genuine wilderness in Newfoundland, so we turned our attention north to Labrador, until Gene Manion, one of Newfoundland's most experienced bush pilots, stopped us in our tracks. He would not countenance our crew's departure until we had canoed the Main River on the Great Northern Peninsula. Only 55 kilometres from source to sea, the river was too inconspicuous on a map to have been noticed in Ottawa.

The Main turned out to be a true wilderness gem. My field notes describe "fantastically beautiful scenery. . . . River famous for fly fishing. Mid-river meadows known as Big Steady exquisite -- moose, fox, and waterfowl conspicuous against background of emerald grasses and wild blue iris. Descent of 12-mile canyon extremely challenging, but water warm. Camped at mid-canyon opposite waterfall evoking Dionysian myths."

It was love at first sight. I have since traveled throughout Canada but found no similar diversity and unspoiled beauty within such a small watershed. The Main is now recognized as one of North America's great canoeing rivers. Though we emerged from its canyon drenched, bitten and bruised, we enthusiastically recommended that Parks Canada encourage the Newfoundland government to preserve the entire Main River drainage.

For years, I heard nothing further of the Main. In 1991, I bought postage stamps celebrating its nomination to the Canadian Heritage Rivers System. But nothing happened. Nothing public, that is. Until now.

This spring, I learned the Main is under sentence of death. Part of my heart must yet be circling one of the canyon's back eddies: I felt the onset of angina.

Corner Brook Pulp & Paper, western Newfoundland's dominant forest company, is seeking to amend its forest licence and begin immediate road construction and logging to within 150 metres of the river. Clear-cuts planned quietly since 1986 would desecrate the Main's most scenic stretches, including the Big Steady, made famous by Canada Post's stamp. Yet an "environmental-impact statement" prepared for the company pretends this would not affect the heritage designation nor damage the Main's ecology.

John McCarthy, a Jesuit priest completing his doctorate in forest ecology, says the Main River watershed harbours Newfoundland's oldest intact boreal forest. Woodland caribou and the endangered Newfoundland pine marten require its intact canopy to survive. In adjacent watersheds, siltation caused by logging is damaging already badly depleted salmon stocks. How would massive clear-cuts affect the Main's famous run?

Corner Brook Pulp & Paper pleads the usual arguments of economic necessity. Yet loggers at the Main's mouth have been left unemployed as one mechanical harvester replaces the saws of many men. The "kill now, reckon later" philosophy, which drove northern cod to near extinction, still resonates in the province of the current premier, and former federal fisheries minister, Brian Tobin. If ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, Mr. Tobin may be doomed to repeat the disastrous "development" experience of former premier, Joey Smallwood.

I hope not. Newfoundland conservationists, allied with scientists and the tourism industry, have mounted a fierce defence of their last remaining wilderness. The Main River Coalition's Web site (home.thezone.net/~wolverin/mainriver.html) illuminates a sorry history of backroom deals consistently breaching sound environmental principles.

Angina environmentalis has been unrelenting since I heard about the Main's death sentence; the only known treatment is to fight back. I have loved this graceful river for 28 years and longed to see her again, pristine, sensuous and regal. Damned if I'm going to sit by and watch her pulped for toilet paper!

If Newfoundlanders jig the last northern cod or fell their final ancient spruce, they only delay the day of reckoning. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, you were our ebullient minister of national parks in the 1970s. Where are you now? My chest pain is getting worse by the day. I need you to make a house call -- to the Big Steady, where my heart aches for the Newfoundland wilderness.

Story and Photography by Tom Perry

(Tom Perry is a Vancouver physician and a lifelong conservationist. He played a key role in saving British Columbia’s Skagit River.)