According to a Jan. 4 post on OutdoorOttawa reblogged this morning by the Ottawa Citizen's Ken Gray, citizens angry over the plans to expand Highway 5 through Gatineau Park will be hosting a press conference this morning.

But this won't be your average press conference. It's aiming high—as in, 100-feet-off-the-ground-high, which is where a protester will have stationed himself in a 200-year-old pine tree. From the release, issued by advocacy group Eco-Watch:

Critics of the Highway 5 extension erected an “incident command post” in Gatineau Park yesterday to protest clear-cutting and rock blasting by Transport Quebec (MTQ).

Two ancient pine trees cresting Brown Lake Mountain have been roped to accommodate tree-sitters and observation cameras. A Wakefield man is currently sitting 100 hundred feet up a massive pine tree lying in the proposed Highway 5 route off Brown Lake Road in Gatineau Park.

According to the release, Wakefield residents and local environmental groups tried and failed to negotiate a compromise with the National Capital Commission over the four-lane 6.5-km divided highway, which will cut through Gatineau Park near Brown Lake in order to link Wakefield and Gatineau. Critics say the planned expansion needlessly clears mature forest and drains wetlands near the eastern boundary of the park.

OutdoorOttawa , which spoke with Eco-Watch director Ian Huggett in November 2011, says the release is confirmation that an "Occupy Gatineau Park" protest is underway.

Earlier this week, the Citizen reported about a newly-discovered letter by Jacques Gréber, in which the French architect and planner—who died in 1962—suggests Gatineau Park requires a “permanent program of enlargement and protection.” Gréber's great-grandson, Xavier Renaud, said he would have been "devastated" to hear of the Highway 5 expansion plans.

Today's press conference is expected to begin at 11 a.m.

Photo by Martin Cathrae on Flickr