Karl’s Strathcona Park Trail Philosophy

I think all parks have personalities, and what’s right for one park may not be right for another.  For instance, what I call “big” trails might belong in places like Banff, which has relatively low rainfall and many gradual transitions in terrain.  But Banff-style trails in Strathcona lead to erosion and maintenance problems, because Strathcona has an entirely different personality.  Strathcona has much higher precipitation than Banff, and terrain changes are often quite abrupt.

I think the existing “big”  trails in Strathcona illustrate this very well.  The trails on the Forbidden Plateau, originally built big for horses, have suffered horribly due to the wet climate.  What might work in Banff  hasn’t worked on the plateau.  The plateau trails have eroded until many of them are little more than boulder-strewn creek beds.

Big trails are very expensive to build and maintain.  The recently built  government-financed trail to Bedwell Lake is an excellent example of this.  Although costs were huge and the trail is only a few years old, it’s quickly falling apart and will soon be as bad as the Forbidden Plateau trails.  Because the design called for it to be wide, (a la Banff, of course) erosion was almost inevitable.  The big design also prevented the trail from taking advantage of the natural flow of the country.  Instead of following the natural flow, the trail forced it’s way, which necessitated blasting, and dangerous eyesores such as steep steel staircases, (many of which have been twisted into even more dangerous and useless shapes by snow) as well as causing erosion problems which are rapidly growing worse every year.

Although it may seem out of place to bring it up here, I think there are obvious parallels with the “leaky condo” fiasco.  The condos were all built to a code which originated elsewhere, where the climate was drier and the designs worked well.  They didn’t work well here, and the costs were huge.  The bureaucrats who devise many of our codes, systems, and rules usually spend most of their lives in universities and behind desks, and they often end up being responsible for areas of human activity where they have no actual experience.  It’s probably safe to say that most bureaucrats have little or no hands-on experience with building condos or trails.

So we see the problem.  These days, we often call this sort of problem “a disconnect.”  Luckily for me, I don’t live in a condo, but my dad first took me hiking in Strathcona Park in 1955, and I find it very hard to watch the park I love being ruined by people who know very little about it.   Strathcona isn’t Banff, and it’s not the Chilcotin or anywhere else.  Strathcona is Strathcona, and it’s both impractical and wrong to try to treat it the same as any other park.  Strathcona, like all parks, has a very distinct personality, and I think trails in Strathcona should accentuate and respect this personality, not work to destroy it at great public expense.

When I was in my teens, I worked with people who had then been hiking in Strathcona for most of their lives.  They’d spent enough time in the park to learn some valuable lessons.  They didn’t try to force their will on the park.  Their trails didn’t ignore the terrain, they used it. These trails are still being used, and they’re still in good shape.  They haven’t become costly eroded messes.   What’s more, they were created at no public expense and they were a lot of fun to build.

Strathcona Park is for us, the people of BC.  It’s not for the government or its friends.  It’s for us.  The Strathcona Park Master Plan was created by us, the public, and it’s worked very well for a great many years.  The government has now eroded the Master Plan against public wishes so that a wealthy government supporter can be granted access to the park to build an erosion-prone commercial horse trail in the erosion-prone Bedwell valley.

They keep saying they’re doing this to benefit the park.  I believe they know nothing about Strathcona and they care even less.

They do care about votes.  All politicians desperately wish to be elected.  This wish is our only weapon against government mistreatment of our parks.  An election is probably looming, and so is the granting of a park use permit which will ruin the wild nature of the Bedwell Valley.  The government is more vulnerable right now than it’s ever been.  It’s time to really let them know that the way they’re treating Strathcona and other provincial parks will hurt them politically.

Thanks,  Karl.

 

Dear Editor

What’s being enacted now in Strathcona Park has happened many times in the past.  It’s a very old battle between commercial values and park values. It’s been going on since Strathcona was first created, 100 years ago, and I now believe it’ll never stop.

In the years before 1988, commerce and industry pretty much had their way, and the park was logged, mined, and dammed extensively.   In 1987, the government chopped the park in half and opened huge chunks to industry.  1988 marked the first time that people stood up for Strathcona and managed to grab it back from the hands of government.  It took a major blockade, but they did it, and the park turned a big corner in its history.

Unfortunately, 1988 was a long time ago, governments have short memories, and money doesn’t rest.  The Campbell government has been very effective at forcing their agendas onto an unwilling public, and although Gordo is now in the process of shuffling off the stage, many of his mistakes remain.  One of these mistakes will soon become law, and if we wish to avoid another Strathcona Blockade we’ll have to move quickly.

The Bedwell Valley was a point of focus during the 1988 blockade, and it’s now again in danger.  The government is in the process of giving a park use permit to a resort backed by money from a man named Richard Genovese, and also, according to their website, something called the Genovese Family Trust.  It’s hard to learn very much about Richard, or the “Genovese Family Trust”, but  Richard seems to have made a fair bit of his money in stock promotion, and has operated out of places like Monaco, at least in the past.  The resort (Clayoquot Wilderness Resort) is a high-end “dude ranch” costing around $1500 a day, and the park use permit would (because of local geography and other reasons) basically turn the Bedwell Valley into a private playground in Strathcona Park for the virtually exclusive use of the resort and its guests.

The activities allowed by the permit will include the construction of a commercial horse trail, and regular commercial horse runs up the valley.  Both the high-impact trail and the high-impact commercial horse trips, if allowed, will disrupt the valley and its wildlife (resident elk herds, etc.) in major  ways.  The public has spoken out strongly and repeatedly (as has the Strathcona Park Advisory Committee, which is, incidentally, an impartial, government appointed body) against the granting of a permit to the resort, but despite this the government has continued to go ahead.  Why?

Why, indeed?  Why spend thousands of dollars of public money and hundreds of hours of time by civil servants, to push something through which the public  has repeatedly and emphatically said it doesn’t want?

Is it possible that Richard and Gordo and his government are friends, and have the same political and commercial idealogies?  Of course.  Is it possible that it suits government political and commercial agendas?  Of course.  In fact it suits the former Campbell government agendas extremely well.   Will granting the permit benefit the park?  Of course not.  It’ll hurt the park in many ways, for years and years to come, and the only possible beneficiary (and even that’s doubtful, for several very good reasons) will be the resort.  It will be of absolutely no benefit whatsoever to the park or the public.

Gordo is finally (thank God) slithering slowly and reluctantly off the stage, but his horrible gift to the park threatens to live on, unless we convince the remaining shreds of his government to disallow granting the park use permit to Richard and the harmful activities of his resort.

Strathcona Park is 100 years old this year, and she’s BC’s oldest provincial park.  She’s suffered plenty from the commercial dreams of governments and their friends throughout her entire life.  If we care enough, we can convince this government to give her one small birthday gift, and take their greedy mitts off her for a change.  The Bedwell is a beautiful valley in a beautiful park, and doesn’t deserve to be ruined, just to satisfy the whims of a government and its friends.  If there’s ever a time to tell them so, this is it.  The park will thank you, and so will I.

Karl Stevenson

3825 Laurel Drive

Royston

V0R 2V0

250 334-2206

karlrobinstevenson@gmail.com

Genovese Info

Dear People

I know it’s the Christmas season, and we’re all busy, but the Campbell government (yes, they’re squabbling, but Gordo’s not gone yet) will probably soon be allowing Clayoquot Wilderness Resort(CWR) into Strathcona Park.  They’ll probably do this for at least two possible reasons:

Parks and Democracy in “Gordoland”

Dear People

I believe there are at least two important principles or concepts that are being violated in the Bedwell/Strathcona Park question.

One is our concept of “democracy” and the other is our concept of “parks.”

Blockade?

Dear People

The Bedwell Valley was once a beautiful wild valley in Strathcona Park.  The government trashed the valley in the 1960s when it sold the timber in the valley to a logging contractor.  In 1987, they dumped the valley from the park, saying it had “low park value” because it had been logged.  In 1988 there was a blockade, and the government was forced to return the valley to the park.

Bedwell/Genovese/Campbell

This will be an attempt to explain what I think is going on in the Bedwell, from a political behind-the-scenes perspective.

• CWR is the outfit that the government is poised to grant a permit to, to run a high-impact commercial horse operation for wealthy ($1500-a day) people in the Bedwell Valley in Strathcona Provincial Park.

OK, this’ll be my somewhat sour synopsis of the story of the Bedwell Valley in Strathcona Park, and it’ll be as short as I can make it.

In the 1960s, the government sold the timber in the Bedwell to logging interests, and it was logged. (Sorry, I just remembered that logging is no longer a politically correct term. Nowadays we don’t log, we “harvest”. Sounds much better, doesn’t it?)

Dear People
I’ve been preparing for our presentation to the Strathcona Park Public Advisory Committee, so I haven’t had time for blogs. I’ll write a blog about the Bedwell Valley story soon. Best wishes, Karl.