Thursday, June 28, 2018

Beaver Lodge Forest Lands: a Campbell River treasure


It’s 7:30 on a snowy morning in December, and the dog we’re looking after and I have just arrived at the access to our favourite walking trail. It’s just starting to get light. Setting out, we don’t see anyone, but judging from the tracks we’re not the first, and half a kilometre later as we join the main trail we can see the tracks we followed in were not the first either. We still haven’t seen or heard anyone, although there appears to be a headlamp in the distance.
All of us are taking this early-morning walk in the Beaver Lodge Forest Lands, a mostly-undeveloped forest large enough to hold about 1 1/4 Stanley Parks on the edge of the developed part of Campbell River, administered by the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources. It is an “experimental forest”; consequently, its sole amenities consist of large garbage cans at several of the access points, three small parking lots, several logging-road-quality roads and bridges, and a network of narrow trails maintained by the Ministry and local environmental charity Greenways Land Trust.


And most of it is used all the time, by dog walkers, by bike commuters and mountain bikers, by runners, by school classes, and by people just out for a stroll. All of this activity is new since the mid-’90s, and there’s a story in that fact.
Shortly after we arrived in Campbell River in 1973, we became aware of a trail of sorts connecting Carihi, the high school at which I was teaching, with Southgate, the new one in Willow Point. We called it the “Jeep trail”, and it was pretty much impassible for much of the year because of washouts, floods, and mud.*  I didn’t realize at the time that the trail was actually what was left of a logging railway grade, abandoned after the area had been clearcut in the 1930’s. In any case, at the time it was pretty much out of the way in the bush, and didn’t play much part in our lives, although I occasionally ran it during the summer months.**
By the late 80’s the District Municipality (that would become the City of Campbell River in the 2000’s) logically assuming the area was merely part of the Provincial forest, was drawing up plans to put housing on much of it after Dogwood Street had been extended across the community, as mandated by the new municipal plan. North Island College and the School District had also spoken for some land near the end of Rockland Road for their new joint campus.
Fortunately for Campbell River and particularly those of us who now use the Lands regularly, the Municipality’s plans were sabotaged, although Dogwood Street was eventually pushed through and the joint Timberline Campus was built as planned.
And that was because some people in Campbell River*** almost remembered that the land in question wasn’t actually land the Province could give away. And then someone, searching for backup to this hunch, found the relevant documents in the Provincial Archives in Victoria: it seems Elk River Timber, the company that had logged the land, had donated the clearcut to the Province of BC in 1931 to demonstrate “experimental work in reforestation and forest management”. The donation was a “Trust” that had a covenant attached. 

Furthermore, the area had been used for its designated purpose: it became the first replanted area in BC in the 30’s, and almost the entire area was either replanted or re-seeded in the years following. The rather amazing results are visible today.
If you imagine that on hearing this the Mayor and Council rolled over and played dead, you would be seriously wrong. They fought this discovery with everything they had. Fortunately for those of us who now live in Campbell River, they did not have the ear of the BC Government, however, because this was during one of the few periods in BC history when the province had an NDP government, and development wasn’t King. Furthermore, our MLA was Colin Gabelmann, the Attorney-General of BC, and while he was characteristically scrupulous about not meddling in partisan activity, he wasn’t going to be party to overturning a Trust, and he knew who to talk to and who to compromise with to get a deal. In other words, you won’t find him in the forefront of any of the official documentation, but his fingerprints are all over the deal that was eventually struck: Dogwood went through to connect to the new Jubilee Parkway, which in turn connects Campbell River to the Inland Highway, the Timberline Campus was built, and, to complete the compromise, while 77 hectares were removed, about 164 hectares were bought and added by way of compensation. 
This fact explains why there is so much variation in the size and kinds of vegetation outside the principal corridor.
Over the intervening years several federally and provincially funded projects have greatly improved the infrastructure of the Lands, the most recent being the addition of 5 industry-standard bridges on the main roads. These days one can walk or run or bike there year-round, which is why, increasingly, Campbell Riverites do.
But it isn’t a park. There are no bathrooms. People who wished to exploit the area for commercial purposes have been quickly dissuaded. Initially some enthusiastic youths attempted to create their own trails; these have now all been either incorporated or removed. 

And theoretically we could still see logging there, although I suspect all hell would break loose if that were attempted. In fact, shortly after Dogwood Street was completed, a windstorm knocked down a significant number of large trees close to where Hilchey Road meets Dogwood. Logging equipment and loggers came in to remove the trees. This very nearly turned into an “incident”, which only the logic of removing such a quantity of valuable timber and the good use the wood would be put to prevented.
The Lands are also quite flat, broken only by the various appendages of Simms Creek, perfect for elderly walkers, but the terrain offers no particular challenges for the expert mountain biker. Nonetheless, every weekend one can spot people on bikes both on the main roads and trails, on the bike  trails abutting the Lands, and exploiting its furthest reaches. I’m told it’s a good fit for beginners, although the claim on one Googled site that “the Beav” could be entirely conquered in about an hour is surely a pipe dream!

There is much that makes Campbell River one of the best places in the world to live, including the climate, many spectacular views of the water, and excellent places to walk year-round, including the Beaver Lodge Forestry Lands. 
We think we were pretty clever to have picked it for our place.
Well, clever and very lucky, of course.





*For a while several running-enthusiast colleagues and I plotted to start a cross-country race, to be held in October before things got too wet, to be called the “Great Muddy”, and to be run between the two schools. But it came to naught when we went to England for a year.
**Although one summer I drove our old Rambler Ambassador from Southgate on the remnants of logging roads to within sight of the airport before being forced to backtrack.
***Yes, I know who they are, but I don’t want to be accused of getting details wrong and/or missing someone significant. Anyway, you probably don’t know them, and they don’t read my blog so we’ll just leave this detail to the reporters.  
(Those readers interested in the details of the history could watch this very interesting and informative video posted to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgdoGtBKaY0)

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