Plan would pave paradise along the Juan de Fuca trail

January 25, 2011

Excerpted from Vancouver Sun:

Rain drummed the windshield during the hour-long drive west from Victoria. It eased to heavy drizzle just as Gordon O'Connor pulled over, shrugged into his rain pants and a ragged wool sweater, and led me into the dripping bush.

The decommissioned logging road that led us deeper into the woods ran like a creek.

After 30 minutes of splashing down the man-made stream, we veered into the rainforest. The canopy, perhaps 80 metres overhead, was so dense that it shut out not only the light, but the drizzle.

The forest floor was bare, a rust-coloured trampoline of decaying needles deposited over centuries. Glossy green clumps of sword ferns and the whole vivid ecology of saprophytes that live on decaying matter punctuated the gloom. There was the yellow gleam of witches' butter, the ghostly undersides of bracket fungus and, here and there, the twisted, fawn-coloured flutes of chanterelle mushrooms.

Then we heard the surf. Swells crashed and bellowed against the rocky shore. A silvery reflected light began filtering through the mighty trunks of old-growth Douglas fir. Now the forest floor was claimed by dense thickets of salal, through which a narrow footpath wound.

Finally, we were onto what we had come for: the Juan de Fuca Provincial Park Marine Trail, second in popularity only to Pacific Rim National Park's world-famous West Coast Trail from Bamfield to Port Renfrew. We came in by an unmarked route but there are four official access points to the Juan de Fuca trail, a brilliantly conceived provincial extension of the national park trail. The provincial segment runs 47 kilometres from Port Renfrew to the old logging camp at Jordan River, where the beach and its big combers are a popular destination for surfers.

The Juan de Fuca trail is brilliant because it provides city dwellers and tourists a wilderness hiking experience through rainforest and along spectacular beaches, but in accessible segments that range from an easy day hike to difficult, rugged terrain. Hikers don't have to commit to a week on the trail; they can do anything from a few hours to an overnight hike to going the full distance.

Small wonder that it's now the third most heavily used provincial park in B.C. -- only Golden Ears and Cultus Lake draw more day visitors. Last year Juan de Fuca Provincial Park had more than 330,000 day users, a 32 per cent increase over 2009.

It's extremely popular with school groups because of its combination of wilderness and accessibility.

The trail followed a steep bluff above the sea with vistas of the Olympic Mountains. Abruptly it plunged down a series of sharp, steep switchbacks. A stream tumbled down the gully. We crossed a lichen-encrusted bridge and sweated back up the 80-degree slope, twisting through salal and wind-sculpted evergreens.

At the top, the trail veered inland to escape impassable slopes notched by gullies choked with deadfalls, storm debris and devil's club.

O'Connor pointed to what he and Karl Hardin, both with an environmental group named the Dogwood Initiative, had brought me to see. Red streamers of survey tape. Kilometres of tape -- seven kilometres, I was later told, although I wasn't counting.

The Capital Regional District is entertaining a rezoning proposal that would leave 15 per cent of it adjacent to a suburb.

Evidence, O'Connor says, of a development scheme that would place about 300 "cabins," a lodge, a recreation centre and caretakers' cottages right along the wilderness trail's route. The privately owned parcel is part of the 28,000 hectares of forest land the provincial government permitted forest firms to remove from tree-farm licences and sell without paying compensation.

So let's see: The Juan de Fuca Marine Trail is 47 kilometres long. It's rapidly becoming another of the iconic wilderness assets that define the Super Natural B.C. brand. And now the Capital Regional District is entertaining a rezoning proposal that would leave 15 per cent of it adjacent to a suburb.

Wow, the perfect peak experience for somebody from London, Berlin or New York on a wilderness hike -- a stroll through suburbia.

O'Connor thinks the scheme is inconsistent with the regional growth strategy and with official community plans for resource lands forged by painstaking public consultation and planning.

"Every time we turn around another of our farms or forests is being bulldozed for a sprawling commuter subdivision, and this has to stop before there's nothing left," he says. "Building 300 cabins along the Juan de Fuca Trail is a completely unsustainable idea that will destroy one of Vancouver Island's greatest natural resources. This remote subdivision is almost guaranteed to raise taxes, increase traffic congestion and lead to more urban sprawl."

The appropriate place for this kind of development, he says, is Jordan River, where infrastructure already exists.

Seems to me that the current leadership contestants for both the provincial Liberals and the NDP, particularly those holding cabinet posts and seats in the legislature, deserve a question:

"What the heck is going on with Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, and if you win, what do you intend to do about it?"

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