Heather Conn Blogs

  — Jack Stein photos

Local community members who have worked for years to help save 27 hectares of Wilson Creek forest have not let last week’s initial logging stop their efforts. If anything, the desire to save this precious creek and area of first-growth firs (cutblock EW002) has grown even stronger.

Early last week, I was truly saddened and deeply disappointed to hear that loggers had begun cutting down this local forest on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast. Then the RCMP announced that anyone who came onto the land would be arrested for trespassing. Members of the peace camp at the mouth of the trail received only 15 minutes to clear out. Three people were arrested.

Supporters at the trail head

I thought of all of the local schoolchildren, parents, hikers, and shishalh elders who have come to this forest to admire and honour its presence. They have spoken out to protect it. I thought of the beauty of the land itself, the soft moss, the pond, the roaring creek, the silent, tall trees, and the various species of creatures that depend on these woods for their home and survival. I thought of the 27 interpretive signs that volunteers had erected along the trail to teach people about the biodiversity of this forest and the important role it plays. Was all this effort and many years of rich, natural growth to be deemed irrelevant, reduced to ugly stumps and slash?

But hope remains, as the forest has met a reprieve—for now. In a display of admirable activist power, some shishalh elders signed trespass-and-rights documents and served them on the RCMP and the Sunshine Coast Community Forest, the body with the logging rights to these hectares. This land, after all, has belonged to the shishalh for centuries; it is part of their traditional territory.

Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich)

Since then, elder Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich) has held daily healing ceremonies in the woods. There has been no logging. Supporters have joined Higgins and her daughter Holly, acting as ongoing forest guardians. They continue to remain in this area. They are determined to save this forest, a vital anchor piece for the proposed Mt. Elphinstone Park expansion, for the enjoyment of their grandchildren.

Concerned community members also shared their anger with Sechelt mayor John Henderson at Saturday’s Sechelt town hall session. Why have he and the Sunshine Coast Community Forest board members not listened to the many people who have spoken out in favour of saving these woods? Whose interests are they guarding?

I’m relieved to hear that the drive to save this forest is still thriving. The group Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) is asking people to show their support. Join Higgins and others at the trailhead. Bring firewood and snacks. Contact ELF for more information.

A woman riding English saddle on a sleek, tall horse stops on a forest path and waits for our group of about 20 to enter the woods before she proceeds. We’re making her horse nervous. Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) has invited us here, into the Day Road forest in Roberts Creek, B.C., to see what could soon be gone due to logging.

This heavily used recreational area, part of Island Timberlands’ (IT) private forest, is the northern section of a 120-hectare (300-parcel) parcel already logged by IT. Part of district lot 2674, it is an important wildlife corridor, containing patches of old forest, a network of high-value trails and a gorgeous waterfall. I am amazed at how serene and pristine the forest entrance and the woods itself look and feel, only a few kilometres north of Highway 101.

Some might argue that since this is private land, Island Timberlands has a right to do what it wants with this piece of forest. But Elphinstone Logging Focus sees it as part of a community legacy, an opportunity for sustainable, rather than clearcut logging. This informal conservation group is calling on Island Timberlands to donate this parcel to the Crown, to be added to an expanded Mount Elphinstone Provincial Park.

“You can see in one section where it was selectively logged in the early nineties,” says ELF president Ross Muirhead. “There’s a lush underground of salal, the hydrology is controlled. It looks like a European eco-forest.”

Muirhead, who has spent years lobbying passionately to stop clearcut logging on Mount Elphinstone, emphasizes that if IT chooses to log in the Day Road forest, he would like to see the parcel, as a compromise,  selectively logged, leaving old-growth timber, and only the trees that are ready for harvesting taken. He emphasizes that the Roberts Creek Official Community Plan calls for selective logging, but no clearcuts.

Island Timberlands’ plans to clearcut the Day Road forest contravene a community agreement made with MacMillan Bloedel, who previously held the timber licence to this parcel, says Muirhead. Following a roadblock in March 1997, MacMillan Bloedel agreed to a selective harvesting plan. Logging was done off the main trail network so that the forest maintained a balance between cut areas and intact forest.

We stop and admire a tall red cedar, which has a series of high scrape marks caused by cougar claws. It’s the animals’ marking tree, the same one used repeatedly.

With the waterfall as their backdrop, a visiting couple poses for a photo on a high point on the steep trail. We discover that they were married in this exact spot roughly a year ago; they have returned, from off-coast, to revisit the beauty. An activist woman in our group tears up when recounting how much this forest means to people; she sees this couple’s anniversary gesture as a poignant symbol of that.

Our group ends up at the “knitted trees” (I had thought it meant intertwined tree trunks), where community members have decorated trees with colourful yarn-bombing. (For more on yarn-bombing and its origins, see my archived blog post “Woolly public art: better than tea-cosies” I decide that I like this form of human demarcation, admittedly quirky and funky, a lot more than clearcut destruction.

Seeing first-growth trees in a forest marked with a red dot or blue number, surrounded by flagging tape, is a stark reminder of how different eyes view what I’ll call “wild wood.”

I had this unwelcome reminder last Sunday while hiking through part of the Wilson Creek forest on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. Along with about 15 others, informally guided by members of Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF), I saw first-hand towering coastal Douglas firs, giant Sitka spruce, and other trees – part of 19 hectares that could be logged by early next year.

The red dots on sporadic trees indicated ones that would be saved, not logged. These “lucky” trees would be left to stand, unprotected from strong winds, in open patches of stumps. The blue numbers on trees, painted by timber cruisers, showed that these “lucky” trees had been chosen as samples of the entire forest slated for logging; the cruisers would make calculations, based on this tiny patch, and extrapolate the data as representative of the whole.

These human-created visuals, bright-coloured stains on an otherwise earthy palette, reminded me of those who see this forest as an untapped resource, ready for harvest, not as a haven for blue grouse, black bear, the red-legged frog, ravens, cougars, and salmon downstream in Wilson Creek. During the several hours our group spent in this silent, woodsy haven, we heard the playful call and response of multiple ravens. Some of us saw a teensy grey-green frog, about an inch long, hopping on the forest floor. The ground beneath us felt spongy and light, the result of multi-years of decayed trees and undergrowth.

Across British Columbia, maturing, old-growth coastal Douglas-fir forests, like the one we were in, are identified as “at risk.” Their ecosystems are threatened province-wide. That’s why ELF is demanding the stop to any logging plans in this region; instead, they want to make this forest a key parcel in the proposed 1,500-hectare Mount Elphinstone Provincial Park expansion.

This issue is not sappy, “tree-hugger” sentiment; it’s a wise and practical response to forest management. Sadly, only three per cent of old-growth coastal Douglas firs across British Columbia are protected. The area designated as Wilson Creek Forest serves as an important connector between two existing Old Growth Management Areas (OGMAs). The current Wilson Creek watershed, already heavily logged, needs all existing intact forests to be left in their natural state, to heal the hydrological damage.

“There are some prize Douglas firs in here,” said ELF member Ross Muirhead, while standing in front of one particularly large fir about 1.5 kilometres in from the trail head. “Once this forest is gone, it’s gone.”

During our hike, I saw the disturbing damage already caused by erosion along the banks above Wilson Creek. A long swathe of cliffs is exposed clay. Any logging, even with a buffer zone next to the creek, would destabilize the nearby earth, causing further erosion and the risk of silt contaminating and even damming a portion of the creek.

Does your local politician put profit over conservation?

Within months, all of this beauty could be gone. With a local election approaching, it’s time to make your local politicians accountable for their stance on forest protection and logging. Do they put profit over conservation? The Elphinstone Logging Focus extended an invitation to Sechelt council to come out and see the local forests at risk; councillor Alice Janisch is the only one who appeared. That’s no surprise – the Sunshine Coast Community Forest, a local logging operation, is wholly owned by the District of Sechelt.

Find out what a true community forest means. It’s one that remains a forest, which has long-term value to a community by staying intact and providing an ongoing role as habitat, soil and water stabilizer, and keeping carbon sequestered. It’s not an expanse of stumps.  

Go to the ELF website, open “Wilson Creek Forest Campaign,” read it, then take action. Your email will got to Sechelt Council and Community Forests. The trees and the animals they provide homes for can’t talk – but you can. You can make a difference.

Local conservationists Rick O’Neill (left) and Hans Penner
measure the girth of a giant yellow cedar on Dakota Ridge.

While a woodpecker tapped in the distance, a massive presence stood above the forest floor, a silent giant amidst hundreds of trees never touched by fire.

It was an ancient yellow cedar on Dakota Ridge on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, only about a half-hour walk from the upper parking lot of this popular recreational area. About thirty of us had gathered on a sunny 9/11 to honor twin towers of another kind: two yellow cedars of 1,000+ years, both currently slated to be logged.

These magnificent trees are part of a roughly 20.2-hectare (50-acre) cut block that could soon be little more than stumps. If logged, this yellow cedar will be exported to Asia, used as finishing wood for temples and expensive homes in Japan or China.

It took about a half-hour to walk in, along the forest floor, spongy with moss, past mountain hemlock and clusters of wild blueberries, to reach these rare old cedars. Along the way, local conservationist Hans Penner told us: “This forest hasn’t had a fire since the last ice age. Every tree here is an individual with its own history.”

As a co-founder of Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF), which organized this guided hike, Penner emphasized the difference that public protest has made so far in the future of these magnificent trees. Last winter, B.C. Timber Sales  put this cut block out for tender, advertising it to interested logging companies.

However, ELF discovered that in addition to these first-growth yellow cedars, the proposed cut block contained culturally modified trees (CMTs). (Local First Nations have used such trees for centuries for stripping off bark to make clothing, hats, baskets, and more.) Any cutblock believed to contain CMTs that predate 1846 or are thought to predate 1846 requires a permit for logging, as per the Heritage Conservation Act.

Hans Penner indicates one of the culturally modified
trees in the cutblock.

When ELF notified B.C. Timber Sales of their discovery, the government body withdrew its advertising before late December last year. It has commissioned a “detailed archaeological assessment” that will examine the scarred trees in this cutblock for their potential to be officially declared CMTs. The auctioning of the timber sale for these hectares has been deferred until B.C. Timber Sales receives the recommendations of the archaeological report.

In the meantime, dozens of local residents have written to the premier, B.C. Timber Sales, and the Ministry of Forests to request that this area be made an ecological preserve (see below for details).

Today, a sign painted with a thunderbird symbol, left by Willard Joe of the Sechelt Indian Band, remains near the first giant yellow cedar as his family symbol and a reminder of the significance of this wood in First Nations traditions.

“We’re looking for a human connection to the past,” said Penner. He and local conservationist Rick O’Neill spread a measuring tape around the biggest ancient yellow cedar in this cut block. It measured 203.8 cm (79.92 inches), reaching two metres or 6.7 feet across.

O’Neill noted that if this ancient forest was logged, leaving perhaps just a half-dozen trees, it would not provide enough habitat for animals. “Even mice travel a mile,” he said, “and amphibians won’t cross a clearcut.”

Penner said: “The living forest has no dollar value.” Our ancient forests are priceless and irreplaceable. We need to protect them. Go up and see these special trees yourself. Write to or phone your local politician.

Take action!

If you would like to preserve old-growth forest on Mount Elphinstone, please contact the Ministry of Forests, Mines and Lands and B.C. Timber Sales, quoting Block A84612.  Ask, or demand, that they place the cutblock and all remaining old-growth on Mt. Elphinstone under a moratorium until permanent protection is granted. Request that this forest be made an ecological preserve. Call and/or write to:

• W. Blake Fougère, Resource Stewardship Officer, Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, Sunshine Coast District, 7077 Duncan Street Powell River, B.C. V8A 1W1, Phone 604-485-0728 Fax 604-485-0799 Blake.Fougere@gov.bc.ca

• Dana Hayden, Deputy Minister of Forests, Mines and Lands, Victoria Ph (250) 356-5012, email: forests.deputyministersoffice@gov.bc.ca
• Copy to: Mike Falkiner, Executive Director, Field Operations, BCTS Tel: 250-387-8309, email: Forests.ExecutiveDivisionOffice@gov.bc.ca
• and cc to: Norm Kemp, Planning Forester, BCTS Campbell River Ph. (250) 286-9359, email: Norm.Kempe@gems7.gov.bc.ca

For more information contact: Ross Muirhead 604-740-5654, or Hans Penner 604-886-5730. Email Elphinstone Logging Focus at loggingfocus@gmail.com and become ELF’s friend on Facebook.

For more information, see my archived blog post “A ‘living museum’ on Mount Elphinstone could be logged” (scroll down and you’ll find it here, under my Environment category).

A threatened yellow cedar on Dakota Ridge

I still remember, decades ago, standing amidst the vast array of stumps of old-growth trees in the Carmanah Valley on Vancouver Island, B.C., feeling sickened by the gutted, clearcut landscape. Right next to it stood a thriving forest of cedars and firs. I stared at both of these side-by-side scenes, which represented the opposite extremes of devastation and vibrant life, and wondered: How could anyone witness this loss of ancient life, so close to an abundant forest,  and not think that something was out of kilter?

A friend of mine recently went up to the forest on Mount Elphinstone near Dakota Ridge recreation area on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, where ancient yellow cedars are slated for logging, and shared these comments:

“I was astounded with what I discovered. Just 300-400 metres from the access road (quite nearby to the D-Ridge parking lot & warming hut) is a forest unlike any I’ve seen anywhere — and I’ve explored plenty of forests. It’s a high-elevation Old-Growth remnant (i.e. an island) about 45 hectares in size, chock-a-block with veteran yellow cedar and hemlock trees, many of which are easily 400-1000 years of age. I’ve never seen such a dense old growth forest.

“But that’s only part of it — by rough estimate, at least a couple dozen of the veteran Yellow Cedar trees still living here are ‘culturally-modified’ – that is, they bear signs of having had bark removed (“modified”) several hundred years ago by ancestors of the Sechelt Indian Band. It is like a living museum.

“Clearly this site is incredibly precious — for its cultural, biological, and educational values as well as a carbon sink (old growth coastal forests store huge amounts of carbon).

“And … this small, remnant forest is all ringed with orange flagging tape as a proposed ‘elimination’ logging site for BC Timber Sales, which is the logging company owned and operated by the provincial government. Log it and in a few short weeks, it’s gone forever. At rock-bottom prices for lumber and pulp. Save it and we will have an educational site more valuable than Stanley Park or Cathedral Grove (which lack the culturally modified trees).”

I recently wrote to various B.C. government ministers, requesting that this rare parcel of forest (it’s 44 hectares or 110 acres, known as Block A84612) be spared from logging. I received a letter, dated January 12, from Tom Jensen, Assistant Deputy Minister of Forests, Mines and Lands. He explained the various regulations that pertained to this cutblock, stating that this “landscape unit . . .is considered available to timber development opportunities.” He said that this cutblock does not affect class 1, 2 or 3 marbled murrelet (species at risk) nesting habitat and that “significant old growth ecosystems on the Sunshine Coast are protected in parkland.” By that reasoning, anything that is not parkland is fair game for logging, right?

The minister added that any cutblock believed to contain Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) that predate 1846 or are thought to predate 1846 requires a permit for logging, as per the Heritage Conservation Act. B.C. Timber Sales has commissioned a “detailed archaeological assessment” that will examine the scarred trees in this cutblock for their potential to be CMTs. Therefore, the auctioning of the timber sale for these hectares has been deferred until B.C. Timber Sales receives the recommendations of the archaeological report.

Since then, 24 CMTs have been identified and tagged in this cutblock, including “taper peels” (long strips of cedar bark removed), notched planks, and test-holes.

Meanwhile, the Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) Group states that an estimated, less-than-two-per-cent of original, old-growth forests remains after a century of logging in the Mt. Elphinstone Forest Service map area.

“Old-growth forests provide ongoing environmental, recreational, and cultural services that need to be recognized as key economic contributors,” says ELF’s Ross Muirhead. “Short-term logging revenues pale in comparison, especially in light of the fact that BC Timber Sales has been losing money for several years. ”

Muirhead notes that new ways of assigning values to intact forests (I’m not sure what he means by that) show that forests actually generate up to $7,000 per hectare in services. That means that a 44-hectare forest provides $294,000 in yearly services to our community.

” We are not prepared to sit back and see our remaining old-growth forests that support bio-diversity be plundered,” says Muirhead.

If you would like to take action to preserve old-growth forest on Mount Elphinstone, please contact the Ministry of Forests, Mines and Lands and B.C. Timber Sales, quoting Block A84612.  Ask, or demand, that they place the cutblock and all remaining old-growth on Mt. Elphinstone under a moratorium until permanent protection is granted. Call and/or write to:

• W. Blake Fougère, Resource Stewardship Officer, Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, Sunshine Coast District, 7077 Duncan Street Powell River, B.C. V8A 1W1, Phone 604-485-0728 Fax 604-485-0799;Blake.Fougere@gov.bc.ca

• Dana Hayden, Deputy Minister of Forests, Mines and Lands, Victoria Ph (250) 356-5012, email: forests.deputyministersoffice@gov.bc.ca
• Copy to: Mike Falkiner, Executive Director, Field Operations, BCTS Tel: 250-387-8309, email: Forests.ExecutiveDivisionOffice@gov.bc.ca
• and cc to: Norm Kemp, Planning Forester, BCTS Campbell River Ph. (250) 286-9359, email: Norm.Kempe@gems7.gov.bc.ca

For more information contact: Ross Muirhead 604-740-5654, or Hans Penner 604-886-5730. See them on Facebook by searching for Elphinstone Logging Focus