Western Canada Wilderness Committee

Just a Few Loose Ends - Sproat Lake

After a considerable stay with Tim and his parents (thanks again!), it was time for me to do my last trip on the island: the journey to Port Alberni, to Sproat Lake Provincial Park…

I had just come back from a caving and rock-climbing trip to Strathcona Park with Tim. I’m not so much a caving kind of guy but I did do some climbing. Unlike with the tree in Cathedral Grove, I managed to make it up the rock face despite the fact that it was wet and slippery. But when I finished I was basically sore and tired. The rain made another camping trip seem pretty much like work, which it was. So I went anyways.

I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but I was told repeatedly that the WCWC was quite unpopular in Port Alberni, on account of it being a logging/mining/redneck town. Apparently tree huggers and hippies were mostly unwelcome. All this advice instilled a bit of apprehension in me. On top of this I had read a few none-too-encouraging quotes from the mayor of Port Alberni (Ken McRae) on the topic of environmentalism. Plus - the poor weather.

Well, the poor weather won in the end. It was overcast and cold. I set up in the parking lot near the boat launch. Very few people came through. However, let it be said that Sproat Lake park-goers are not a bad bunch. Let it be added that the local paper, while to my knowledge, never did cover the story, they did in fact have a WCWC calendar on the wall in the office. So that’s pretty cool, at least.

On really great thing that happened was the I ran into Nat, a very nice young lady with enormously strong arms who canvassed for the Committee for a couple of week last fall. I trained her, in fact. She was doing a kayak-guiding trip for a group of ladies from Alberta. And she had a place to stay in Prot Alberni. So I didn’t have to camp in the rain! It was pretty great. What a thing to run into a long lost acquaintance such a ways away from home. Okay it’s not crazy far, but not camping in the rain (AGAIN) is truly great. Thanks Nat!

Well, Sproat Lake didn’t last too long. After the Friday, I spent the night on the road home for the first time in about a month. My own bed was strange but welcome. I went back to Golden Ears that weekend but the rain meant a lack of visitors, so it’s nothing worth getting into.

Okay, so my firewood story was this:

I was at China Beach and I was hungry. I got all my food ready and I was about to cook a veggie burger (my motto: No meat for Micah) when I discovered that the Coleman stove I was using wasn’t going to work for me. I don’t really know what was wrong but it would go. I even had ‘Ranger’ Mike, the park operator, look at it for me, but to no avail. So I thought, “I can cook with fire,” since the fire ban didn’t apply at that park.

However, the rules of the park say you can’t just take wood from around your site and burn it, you have to buy firewood (this gets into the fact that logging companies don’t just give waste wood to the parks anymore but I guess that’s something that’s just too good to last forever). Well, I thought about it: the wood cost more than I wanted to pay. But I could write it off to the Committee. But then I would have to explain to Andrea or Joe or Gwen (my various bosses) that I had to spend the Committee’s money because I couldn’t find wood in a forest. Even though it wasn't far, I was just too tired to go drive to the outer boundaries of the park and collect wood. I ended up waiting for my ‘volunteer’ to show up. She never did. But I ate a bunch of trail mix and a bun and I fell asleep. The next day I found the ‘volunteer’ and used her stove. Mike liked her and her friends, so while I was hanging out at her site, I didn’t have to pay much (or anything, actually) for the wood.

So, that was the island. My trip wrapped up a while ago and I’m writing this a couple of weeks late (you know how the paper work can back up when you have a busy schedule). The Barisoff letters are on their way and the last journal is coming up. It’s about Manning Park on Labour Day weekend. International Peace Day is coming, so until then… peace.