Western Canada Wilderness Committee will host a campout gathering in the Manning-Skagit Park complex, just beyond Hope, on Saturday, May 22 and Sunday, May 23 to bring attention to the Campbell-government-approved clearcut logging of the area’s spotted owl habitat.

At the moment Ivis Wood Products of Yarrow is clearcutting within a spotted owl management area in the heart of the park complex. The northern spotted owl is Canada’s most endangered bird species with less than 25 pairs remaining. Gathering participants will be given the chance to join in several competitive events, according to Wilderness Committee spokesperson, Joe Foy.

“Since BC will be home to the 2010 Winter Olympics we thought it appropriate to include some sporting events,” explained Foy. “We’ll be having the first ever race to extinction. Runners will have to cross the entire huge new clearcut that now scars the centre of the park complex,” said Foy. “The winner will get a mini-stump trophy,” he claimed.

Foy says other events will be announced closer to the gathering date.

“I don’t know what Queen Victoria would think about our gathering on her birthday, if she were still alive,” said Foy. “But if I had to explain to her why people would want to spend a long weekend racing through a clearcut I’d tell her we are trying to embarrass the BC government so they stop logging the owl to extinction,” said Foy. As details become available the Wilderness Committee will post them on its website www.wildernesscommittee.org