East Creek Rainforest
East Creek Rainforest Photo credit: Adrian Dorst
Until recently, the East Creek Valley off northwestern Vancouver Island was one of six arge primary watersheds left on Vancouver Island which hadn’t been scarred by logging or road building. East Creek contains majestic yellow cedar and mountain hemlock in its uplands and massive Sitka spruce and western red cedars in its bottomlands. It provides critical habitat for wildlife, including bald eagles, wolves, black bears, black-tailed deer, and Roosevelt elk. It is also spawning habitat for steelhead trout and all five species of BC’s wild salmon – pink, sockeye, coho, chum, and one of the few remaining wild Chinook runs left on the Island. It is a major refuge for the threatened marbled murrelet, a seabird that nests only on the mossy limbs of ancient trees. The Quatsino people have been using the forest and marine resources in the region for millennia.
Ancient yellow cedar cut down in the once pristine East Creek Valley. Photo credit: Joe Foy
Unfortunately, in 2003 LeMare Lake Logging Co. began building a road into the upper valley in order to log over 30 cutblocks, several of which they’ve now begun to chainsaw down. If LeMare succeeds in completing their road, it will connect to the Lower East Creek Valley where Weyerhaeuser or their successor will log in the most spectacular reaches of the valley. Though remote, this valley deserves a big fight by all environmentally conscious people in BC. We can’t let the timber companies clearcut our very last Vancouver Island pristine valleys without a major battle!
Nootka Trail
World class West Coast experience along the Nootka Trail. Photo credit: Warrick Whitehead
One of the real gems of the eco-tourism industry in BC is the 35 kilometre long Nootka Trail. On the west side of Nootka Island off the central west coast of Vancouver Island, the trail is used by thousands of tourists from around the world every year.
The trail can be comfortably backpacked in 7 days and goes past awesome ancient Sitka spruce and red cedar forests, sandy beaches, rocky headlands, rich intertidal pools, and waterfalls. The hiking trail has a beautiful mountainous backdrop the whole distance. Wildlife includes sea otters, sea lions, grey whales, killer whales, and numerous sea birds in the ocean, and black bears, wolves, cougars, black-tailed deer on land. The area also includes Yuquot (Friendly Cove), an area of historic significance where the first contact was made in BC between First Nations and Europeans when Captain Cook came in 1778. The trail is in the territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht band, who have over the centuries created many Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) throughout the area. Unfortunately, logging plans by Western Forest Products threatens to fragment the viewscapes around the trail. The thin strip of protection being proposed by the BC government would be insufficient to maintain a genuine wilderness experience for hikers, nor would it protect the ecological integrity of the region. Only a protected area extending from the ocean to the ridgetop of the adjacent mountains would ensure the recreational and ecological integrity of the trail.
