On the weekend of September 19 a team of Wilderness Committee staff and volunteers headed out to Clayoquot Sound to participate in the Great Canadian Beach Clean Up.

The beach we chose was Ch'uuis Beach on Kennedy Lake, which is the gateway to the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation's Ha'uukmin Tribal Park.

You can learn more about the Tribal Park here We left the Wilderness Committee offices Friday afternoon and traveled in a convoy of three vehicles. We camped along a forestry road just past Cathedral Grove. About 8 in the evening it started to rain, and at one point at night was really pouring down. Next morning we found that everyone had managed to avoid getting soaked.

We headed out again on the road - stopped for a quick coffee and bite at Tim Horton's in Port Alberni, then back on the road again.

We hooked up with Shawn Quick of the Tla-oqui-aht Tribal Parks office at the Tofino/Ucluelet Junction. He showed us the way to Ch'uuis Beach and pointed out the work that needed to be done, including general clean-up of garbage and the clearing away of a tree that had come down.

We found a great place to camp, just the other side of the old bridge that crosses the Kennedy Lake narrows.

By the end of the weekend we had picked up 230 kg. of garbage! We seperated it into recyclables and garbage, bagged it up and put it in the back of our pickup truck. We would have had a greater weight - but a van seat that we had picked up was retrieved by campers who had been using it as a bed. Oops - we appologized and returned it.

All day the weather was great - fresh air and blue sky! One of the campers at the beach really appreciated what we were doing. He had been at the 1993 Clayoquot protests at the Kennedy River Bridge. He was there to pick mushrooms in the surrounding forests, so he gave us a gift of a bunch of Chanterelle mushrooms for or dinner and boy were they tastey.

That night the stars came out - a perfect end to the day.

Next morning an eagle was perched in a snag near the old bridge and the sky was blue again.

We headed back to Vancouver. It was a great trip. We made a short video.

We have some Clayoquot trail work parties coming up. Why not drop our volunteer coodinator Stephanie
an email at stephanie@wildernesscommittee.org to see when the next group is going. See you on our next Clayoquot trip!

Joe Foy, Wilderness Committee National Campaign Director