By Joe Foy

 

Usually I like to roll out of bed early before anyone else gets up. It’s a habit I picked up when I was a kid. Small house – big family. I like a little morning quiet time to think things over.

 

This is especially true when we are on a family camping trip. Small tent – big family.

 

And so it was on a recent August morning that I crawled out of our tent into yet another glorious blue-sky day just after sun-up in the Pyramid Campground at Wells Gray Provincial Park. My wife and son and two of my nephews and I were in the middle of a 20 day road-trip camping in some of BC’s awesome provincial parks. On this trip we’d already been to Monk, Green Lake, Bull Canyon, Tweedsmuir, Barkerville, Purden, and Mount Robson. Now it was time to experience Wells Gray — the waterfall park.

 

I hopped on my mountain bike and went for a short ride up the road to Helmcken Falls. When I got there I had the view all to myself. I stood by the precipice and contemplated the wonder of it all for a bit, then went for a stroll.

 

While wandering around I spied a large display map of the provincial park system, so I went over to have a look. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something wasn’t right about the map. Then I figured it out. All of the new parks – many the result of the tree wars of the 1980s and 90s — were on the map. There were a lot of new green bits that weren’t there the last time I had looked at a parks map.

 

It was fun to recall some of the wild times that had gone into gaining these newer protected areas. Back in the early 1980s only about 5% of the province was under park protection. Today, thanks to the hard work, innovation and persistence of thousands of conservationists across the province and to those politicians willing to listen and to act, the level of park protection has more than doubled to just over 13% of BC. And the protected area system is still growing. Many conservation organizations would like to see it grow to at least 40% of the landbase, putting BC on par with Alaska.

 

When I looked at the new parks on the map I thought of the buckets of blood, sweat, and tears that had gone into securing protection for these beloved wild places. My finger traced the boundaries of Tatshenshini Valley, Stein Valley, Skagit Valley, Carmanah Valley, Pinecone Burke, Megin Valley, Cariboo Mountains, and the Northern Rockies. I thought of all of the newest protected areas in the Great Bear Rainforest, not yet inscribed on the map. And I offered a silent prayer of thanks to all the work of those earlier generations who had secured the oldtime parks like Wells Gray, Mount Robson, Strathcona, Tweedsmuir, Garibaldi and Manning.

 

And finally, I gave a bit of quiet contemplation to past battles lost. Wild places where conservationists had given their all and yet the bulldozers and chainsaws had still come.

 

These lost lands were not marked on the big map, yet it is on these lands that BC’s conservation movement forged its most determined wilderness defenders – in the firestorm of peaceful resistance.

 

I though of past protests in Clayoquot Sound, Walbran Valley, Tsitika Valley and the Elaho where forest defenders had watched with bitter tears as their blockade lines were broken, comrades arrested and ancient forests chainsawed to the ground. And yet, even though some forests were lost, it is largely because these brave folks took a stand and hung in there no matter what that a kind of strong spirit was kindled in the greater conservation movement. I believe that spirit is why our protected area system has expanded so much and continues to grow today.

 

Before heading back to camp my last thoughts were of Eagle Ridge Bluffs in West Vancouver and all the people who this spring gave their all to save the forest there. Today the trees have been cut for the Olympic highway and the forest defenders arrested, charged, and are working their way through the court system. 

 

Their peaceful actions and determination in the face of a losing battle is the latest chapter in the proud history of BC’s conservation movement.The strong spirit they display foretells a hopeful future.