Article content Financial contributions from local wilderness lovers were key to setting aside a huge, mountainous tract near Willisville and Whitefish Falls as conservation land. “One of the tremendous positives out of this has been the people,” said Ted Cowan, treasurer with the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy, which finalized its acquisition of the 1,984-acre property last week. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser. Northerners kick in for Heaven's Gate Reserve Back to video “The Sudbury-Manitoulin area has roughly one per cent of the province’s population, and more than 50 per cent of the total funds we had donated came from that one per cent.”