Drawieński

Drawa National Park was created in 1990 in north-western Poland, in the heart of the extensive forest known as the Puszcza Drawska. Its axis is the river Drawa and its tributary the Płociczna, which run hemmed into narrow valleys cut through glacial deposits, between wooded slopes.

The Drawa is a river of clean water and lively current, with stretches of rapids uncommon on the Polish plain, which has made it one of the most prized canoeing routes in the country; Karol Wojtyła himself paddled down it several times before becoming pope. Those conditions of cold, oxygenated water support populations of salmonids and a quality river fauna, with otter and kingfisher, and the beaver is widespread.

The surrounding forest is mixed, dominated by pine on the sandur sands but with well-developed beech stands in some sectors, alder carr on the flood meadows and scattered peat bogs and lakes, some of them of very clear, nutrient-poor water. Forest raptors breed in the mature stands, among them the white-tailed eagle, and the whole forms part of the Natura 2000 network. The sparse population around it and the continuity of the forest make the park one of the quietest areas in western Poland.