BC Liberals: Public Parks Are Open For Private Exploitation

Will industrial development be coming to a park near you?
How about in Cathedral Grove?

In the news for a while was more evidence that nothing is officially sacred any more. Everything public is being privatized, and now that includes BC's park system.

Here we thought that our hard-fought battles were to preserve special places for future generations. Now we can see that we were just preserving special places for future corporate exploitation.

How much do they want of our public land? All of it - 100%.

And they will get it (including the 12% of land designated as provincial parks in BC) if we don't raise our voices and tell them to keep their hands off our sacred trust.


The following is from Bill 4 Passes: B.C. Parks Now Officially Open…To Pipelines and Drilling:

March 25, 2014

A little-known Bill, the Park Amendment Act, that will drastically alter the management of B.C. parks is set to become law today, creating controversy among the province’s most prominent environmental and conservation organizations. 

The passage of Bill 4 will make way for industrial incursions into provincial parklands including energy extraction, construction of pipelines and industry-led research. 

The Bill, quietly introduced in mid-February, has already met significant resistance in B.C. where the Minister of Environment received “thousands of letters” of opposition, according to Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s Peter Wood. 

“There has been absolutely zero public consultation, and the pace at which this was pushed through suggests this was never a consideration,” he said in a press release. 

“This Bill undermines the very definition of what a ‘park’ is,” Gwen Barlee from the Wilderness Committee said in the same statement, “given that our protected areas will now be open to industrial activity.” 

“This is a black day for B.C. Parks – the provincial government is ensuring that none of our parks are now safe from industrial development,” she said. 

According to staff lawyer Andrew Gage with the West Coast Environmental Law the bill is “difficult to square” with the sentiments underlying the B.C. Parks Service, which claims provincial parks and conservancies are a “public trust” for the “protection of natural environments for the inspiration, use and enjoyment of the public.”

See a list of the provincial parks at risk here. 

Winter Storms Pound Local Beaches

On Florencia Bay, Tofino, driftwood is strewn across the upper beach

Recent strong winds across the region canceled 75 ferry sailings, knocked power out, and gave spectacular displays of tree-tossing turmoil on local beaches.

Florencia Bay, Tofino

Often giant pieces and whole trees were high on the beach, seemingly beyond the water's reach. When I first started visiting the west coast of Vancouver Island, I marveled at the tumble of drift logs on most beaches.

Having visited only in the summer time, I wondered how the logs could get so far from the placid water. When I moved here I witnessed coastal winter storms for myself, and discovered the awesome power of wind, water, and waves. Any drift wood caught in such a storm doesn't stand a chance.

Huge white-foamy waves cover wilderness beaches and toss old growth drift trees like rubber ducks in a turbulent tub. Logs bob in the surf and are driven up against the beach, eventually coming to rest along the edge of the rain forest.

Big waves toss big logs over the beach on Ross Bay in Victoria, BC during a recent storm

In the city, waves drive logs over concrete embattlements and into the street. After strong south-easterly storms, heavy equipment must be brought it to clear large chunks of drift wood debris.

Summers on the coast are nice with calm weather and stretches of drought, but to witness the full fury and power of the Pacific, you have to do some winter storm watching.

Watch out for rogue waves. 

British Columbia's War On Old Growth Forests

"TIMBER" - Say good-bye to BC's ancient forests

BC's coastal forest is part of a globally rare ecosystem - the temperate rain forest at its height only covered under one percent of the Earth's land surface. Over 1/2 of this unique rain forest has been logged globally in a deforestation unparalleled in human history.

BC has some of the largest tracts of original temperate rainforest left, a distinction it shares with Alaska and Chile. But, for a variety of insufficient reasons, every day that dawns in beautiful BC sees giant, old growth temperate rain forest trees cut to the ground. Massive specimens, up to a thousand years old or more, are felled to build decks and make toilet paper. 

Increasingly, BC citizens are calling for an end to the War On Old Growth Forests, and it couldn't come too soon. In the past 150 years up to 89% of the productive ancient forests of Vancouver Island have been decimated.

In the 1980s, concerned citizens blockaded logging on Clayoquot Sound's largest island. Because of their forward thinking, Meares Island still retains its near-intact original forest today. Although there is precious little remaining old growth, Clayoquot  holds the distinction of having the largest intact ancient forest left on Vancouver Island.

Clayoquot Sound old growth trees, Mark Hobson photo

In 1993 one of the largest civil disobedience events in Canadian history took place in Clayoquot Sound. 12,000 forest defenders joined together on a logging access road and proclaimed the area off limits. Nearly 1000 people, including senior citizens, were arrested protecting this natural area of global significance. They proved that the people are the only ones that can safe our forests.

However, today it remains under the threat of rapacious multi-national logging corporations, and governments that have no regard for the future or the public interest.

The logging of old growth continues, and forest defenders fight to end it before the ancient forest is extinct, along with many of the species that depend on it for survival.

On south Vancouver Island a few logging hot spots in the news recently are:

• the Old Arrowsmith trail (close to world famous Cathedral Grove)
• areas bordering world famous Pacific Rim National Park
• steep hillsides in the Cowichan Lake area and,
• Clayoquot Sound

Standing on the stump of an ancient cedar tree in 2000, a member of Hesquiat First Nation gazes over the clearcut wasteland of his ancestral territory on Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island. The deep scars of logging roads and erosion are clearly visible on the mountain in the distance, evidence of the brutal clearcutting by Interfor. Adrian Dorst photo, source

The Old Arrowsmith Trail was first built in 1912, and is the oldest trail still in use on Vancouver Island. It is located at the south end of Cameron Lake, a few kilometers east of world famous Cathedral Grove. Logging company Island Timberlands has given notice that they will be logging the area, putting in jeopardy the last foot accesses to Mount Arrowsmith Regional Park. Sections of the Lower Ralph Rousseau trail that leads from the back of Cathedral Grove are unusable since recent clear cutting there.

Pacific Rim National Park encompasses some of Vancouver Island's most spectacular scenery. Over a million people visit this ecologically significant destination every year. Unfortunately, Pacific Rim was not designed with a buffer zone, and logging has been encroaching ever since the park's inception in the 1970s. Clear cuts extend right up to the boundary lines, and often chain saws, logging trucks, and large log-lifting helicopters can be heard from your campground.

Cowichan Lake area (including Carmanah/Walbran) has been under constant and continuous logging pressure for a hundred years. The easy trees are long gone, and now increasingly desperate corporations are going after the more marginal old growth areas, like steep hillsides. This type of logging often causes massive erosion, soil loss, and sedimentation/degradation of salmon streams.

Clayoquot Sound, with the largest area of old growth forest and the only cluster of unlogged valleys remaining on Vancouver Island, is in constant threat from those who look at these valleys and see only dollar signs. Agreements and promises resulting from the '93 citizen occupation are under threat because there is big money to be made plundering this global treasure.

Former MP Keith Martin atop a recently cut, 1000 year+ redcedar stump
near Port Renfrew, TJ Watt photo

BC Forest Facts

• BC has about 1/4 of the world's remaining coastal temperate rainforest.
• Just over 1/2 of BC's coastal temperate rainforest has been cut already.
• 3/4 of the productive ancient forest on Vancouver Island has been logged already.
• 13% of the island's area is protected in parks, but this contains only 6% of the island's productive forest.
• Of 89 large primary valleys on Vancouver Island (valleys that are 5,000 hectares or larger that empty directly into the ocean), only 6 remain undeveloped (completely unlogged or less than 2% logged).

Contact your elected officials and let them know how you feel about the planned extinction of our ancient forests. It is up to us to save them. Let's end the BC government's War On Old Growth Forests.

Honourable Christy Clark, Premier
PO BOX 9041 STN PROV GOVT
Victoria BC
V8W9E1
CANADA

Extending Pacific Rim National Park

West Coast Trail ladders aid movement through the rainforest.
Photo credit: footloosiety

The mist blowing off the sea and through the canopy of the rain forest near Port Renfrew, BC sweeps through some of the most monumental coastal trees in BC, Canada, and the world. Some, including ex-MP Keith Martin, think that extending Vancouver Island's spectacular coastal park south could give the trees the protected status they richly deserve.

View Pacific Rim National Park Extension in a larger map.


Clear cut logging of the last unprotected old-growth forests adjacent to Pacific Rim National Park has been taking place since the park was established in 1971. Logging often takes place right to the boundary of the narrow strip of coastal park, and can be heard in places from campsites on the West Coast Trail.

Logging old growth in the Upper Walbran valley near the spectacular (and unprotected) Castle Grove, home to the Castle Giant, one of Canada's largest Western red cedars.
Photo credit: Wilderness Committee

In places like the Klanawa, Rosander, Upper Nitinat, Upper Walbran, Gordon, Hadikin Lake and San Juan Valleys, precious old growth of the type that draws over 1 million visitors a year to the National Park is thoughtlessly destroyed.

Stunning forest along the WCT.
Photo credit: footloosiety

A proposal to extend Pacific Rim National Park could include these old growth trees, as well as the Juan de Fuca trail, and adjoining resource lands of speculator Ender Ilkay's failed bid to rezone and develop the wild west coast between Sooke and Port Renfrew.

The Red Creek Fir is the world's largest know Douglas fir. It is
presently unprotected. Photo credit: Ancient Forest Alliance/TJ Watt

Near the south end of the West Coast Trail Unit of Pacific Rim National Park, lie some of British Columbia's most monumental coastal trees. In spite of being listed on BC's Big Tree Registry, none of them are officially protected by the province. Extending Pacific Rim National Park to include these trees and others, is an idea whose time has come.

Some of our largest remaining trees and wild stretches of coastline are being targeted by both logging interests and the provincial government through corporate-friendly policies. 90% of the most productive forests on Vancouver Island have already been affected.

The people made Pacific Rim National Park happen in the first place. We can extend it. But it will take a public outcry if we are to save the last big trees.

West Coast Trail Redux

Ancient Western Red-cedar close to Bamfield

It will be 22 years this month since my first visit to the wilderness of Vancouver Island, and my introduction to the wet, wild, and rugged 75 km (46 mile) West Coast Trail (WCT). I had traveled from the Canadian prairies, a semi-desert with a lot of grasses and not much for trees. I wanted to see big trees. I was not disappointed.



The remote and scenic park passes through a narrow corridor of coastal old growth spruce, hemlock, and cedar. Some of the biggest, tallest, and oldest trees in the world live in this green, wet land. I had purchased a WCT guidebook with the curiosity of a land-locked teen. Over the years I dog-eared the pages while making plans to hike this remote coastline cloaked in fog and big, shaggy, moss-covered trees.

The West Coast Trail retraces parts of an old telegraph line cut through the coastal rain forest wilderness in 1890. The frequently wet, muddy trail passes beneath a forest canopy that disappears as it rises up through the fog.




On one side is the near-impenetrable forest, on the other, the rugged shoreline of the Pacific Ocean. This is the dangerous, rocky coast that has claimed as many as 66 ships over the years.



This section of coastline became known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific", and in 1891 the Carmanah Point Lighthouse was built to guide the increasing number of ships plying the wet coast.



Between 1907 and 1910 the original telegraph trail was upgraded for the rescue of shipwrecked mariners.



Over the years improved technology lead to reduced marine casualties and less need for the trail. In 1954 the Canadian Government abandoned the remote and rugged Dominion Lifesaving Trail.



In the 1960s when logging companies began to threaten the remote west coast, citizens interested in preserving the old trail and old growth forest campaigned for preservation.



In 1970 Pacific Rim National Park was established - the WCT was included and revived.



I first hiked the trail starting from Bamfield and hiking to Port Renfrew. Along the way is a mix of rain forest hiking and traversing varied beach topography.



Passing by thousand year old cedars and some of the tallest Stika spruce in the world made every step enjoyable. At the end of some afternoons we took series of rickety ladders down steep headlands on the way to camp for the night on sandy beaches below.








Once on the beach there were cliffs, sandstone ledges, sea caves, arches, tidal pools, and waterfalls to explore. Tsusiat Falls is the largest set of falls on the trail, and is one of the best campsites to stop at for a while. It is also a good place to fill a bottle or two with often rare fresh water.

Campsite at Tsusiat Falls

The West Coast Trail section of Pacific Rim National Park is a fragile, narrow 25,640 hectare strip of waterfront southeast of Barkley Sound between the villages of Bamfield and Port Renfrew. Hiking it when I did, before more recent regulations and upgrades, was still about adventure and survival. But upgrades have not diminished the beauty.

Wide, dry trail closer to Bamfield

The WCT is stunningly beautiful. It is a world class hike that draws hikers from all corners of the globe. In spite of this, clear cut logging of old growth forest was ongoing right up to the park boundary when I hiked it in 1989, 1990 and 1992. The destruction continues unabated to this very day.

A mini-corduroy road through dense bush and wet ground

Although we could often hear logging activity from the trail, we were blown away by the monumental trees saved within the confines of the West Coast Trail. It highlights the payoffs resulting from conservation and long-term thinking.

Hiking between the forest and the sea

West Coast Trail Facts

- 6000 people a year hike the WCT. 1-2% need emergency evacuation due to injury, illness, or hypothermia.

- Vancouver Island has one of the highest concentrations of black bears and cougars in the world.

- Although the trail can be hiked in as little as 24-48 hours, I recommend taking as long as you possibly can. Some hikers carry small day packs and try to get through in about a day. When my group was hiking it we were trying to set the 'longest time to hike' record, aiming for 10 to 14 glorious days or more. Most people take about one week, but even that is a pretty grueling pace, depending on conditions (yours and the trail's).

Long ladders, big trees

- we hiked in the days before mandatory registration and fees. Now you have to pre-register for a spot for hiking between May 1 and September 30, or arrive in person and possibly have to wait for up to 3 days. 2 weeks on either end denotes the shoulder season when conditions may not be ideal, but you get to skip the registration process.

- the more challenging section of the trail is at the Port Renfrew end, with large elevation changes aided by many ladders. As the trail approaches Bamfield it gets more level, wider, and with more massive trees.

Beach camping under the trees at Michigan Creek

- In December 2006 a winter storm with record wind speeds blasted the west coast and knocked down 3000 trees on the WCT. Other trail infrastructure was damaged, but was quickly rebuilt.

- a great way to travel to or from the Bamfield trail head is on the west coast freighter, the MV Frances Barkley, that plies the Alberni Inlet from Port Alberni.

- for more WCT information see here.

Getting There

• Pacheena Bay Trailhead, Bamfield - gravel logging roads from Port Alberni or Duncan, approximately 3 hours; or by West Coast Trail Express Bus (wcte@pacificcoast.net). MV Frances Barkley from Port Alberni. The WCT Hiker Registration Office located 4 km south of Bamfield. 
• Gordon River Trailhead, Port Renfrew - drive approximately 2 hours from Victoria via Highway 14; or by West Coast Trail Connector Bus from Victoria. Follow highway signs in Port Renfrew to the WCT Hiker Registration Office. 

View West Coast Trail in a larger map

Directions to Cheewhat Lake Cedar Trail

Cheewhat lake is in a remote location on south west Vancouver Island. It is reached using industrial logging roads that are known tire eaters. A friend of mine on a recent trip to nearby Nitinat Lake had the pleasure of three flat tires along this stretch of road. He was prepared with a small electric tire pump, tools, and a tire patch kit. If you are still interested, directions to the Cheewhat Lake Trail are below.

In 1988 long-time Sooke resident Maywell Wickheim discovered the Cheewhat Lake Cedar growing on the eastern side of Cheewhat Lake. It remains the largest known Western Red Cedar in BC, and grows protected in old forest in Pacific Rim National Park. However, this fragile and vanishing forest is susceptible to blow down from nearby logging.


The Cheewhat Lake Trail is recommended for experienced hikers due to its poor and unmaintained condition. Losing the trail and ending up navigating your way through an extensive blow down area, in the rain, as dusk in approaching, is no fun and potentially dangerous. Exercise extreme caution.

Roland and his wife discovered some of the potential pitfalls of hiking Vancouver Island's wild forests:

"Yesterday (27/7/07) my wife and I attempted to find this tree. The way is VERY poorly marked with tape. Saw some big cedars, but never found the Cheewat. Tapes petered out and we got lost searching for tree. Eventually had to bushwack back out the the road. VERY hard.!Took us two hours!! This trail is dangerous without GPS!!"

View Larger Map


Directions To Cheewhat Lake Trail (Adapted from: Hiking Guide to the Big Trees of Southwestern British Columbia by Randy Stoltman)

Follow highway 18 from Duncan to the town of Lake Cowichan. From Lake Cowichan drive the shore of Cowichan Lake to Heather Campsite at the Western end. From the western end of Cowichan Lake, follow the Nitinat Mainline logging road for about 20km (12m) to the junction with Carmanah Mainline.

Keep left at the Carmanah Mainline and follow the road - watch for signs for Carmanah Park. After crossing the Caycuse River, keep right on Rosander Mainline at the "T" junction. Near the top of the hill the road will cross a narrow bridge. This bridge crosses a notable limestone box canyon 45m (150ft) deep.

Rosander Mainline will traverse the hillside above the east shore of Nitinat Lake, climbs steeply, then drops into the Marchand Creek valley. The road winds down into the valley, then after several bridges rises gently.

After a wide clearing the road enters a logged area. Park safely off the road at the first widening of the road on the right after entering the clear cut. Nearby a rough, overgrown track leads down into the clear cut.

Follow this track down and across the slash. As the track rises slightly and bears left along the edge of the old-growth forest that marks the boundary of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, look for a huge cedar stump 4.6m (15ft) across. Ring counts of this stump totaled 968 years. Another stump nearby has 1212 intact annual rings, plus it has a hollow center - this tree could have been as old as 1400 years when it was cut down.

The Cheewhat Lake trail is roughly marked with flagging, but it is easy to lose ones way here. The trail begins near an area of blow down along the park boundary, and the initial start to the trail is obscured with fallen trees. After carefully negotiating your way over, under, and around the downed trees, the trail will descend to the right through the blow down.

Pick up the trail again at a flat covered with ferns and huge cedars. The largest tree in this grove is over 4.6m (15ft.) thick, but the grove itself has been affected by more blow down due to inadequate park buffer zones.

Beyond this grove carefully follow the vague and poorly marked trail. It heads to the right over a low ridge, then doubles back to the left along a bench land through dense salal and cedar-hemlock rain forest. The trail will turn downhill and passes two Western red cedars growing by each other. The bigger of the two is 5.5m (18ft.) in diameter.

A short distance downhill and left you will find the awe-inspiring pinnacle of The Cheewhat Lake Cedar. This champion tree is 6.0m (19.7ft) in diameter and 59m (194ft) tall. Nearby are many other large cedars scattered through the original, wild forest.

If you go, enjoy this precious landscape and use it carefully. Stay on the trail, if you can find it, and pack out all garbage. Most of all, enjoy Canada's largest tree, The Cheewhat Lake Cedar.