Western Canada Wilderness Committee

On Top of the World - Cypress Mountian on Parks Day

In honor of national parks day, I went to the very local and very busy Cypress Provincial Park. Parking meters have been added to all the picnic and parking areas on the mountain. This is the story of my weekend...

But before I get to Cypress, I would like to take a moment to bask in the success that this project has had. We received news from the provincial government that they are going to spend $4.2 million to fix the trails that were closed due to lack of maintenance, like the one at Bear Creek (sorry, I forget it's name) and the Engineer Loop trail at the West Gate. This is great news. However, I see it as a crumb. We want the whole cookie. So the tour continues. Let's see if we can't end the user fees and get the proper parks budget reinstated. I like to envision that there is a team of crack government strategists scheming about what kind of damage control they can do to stop the impact of our campaign. Then I image that they're becoming quite vexed at how we're frustrating they're efforts to privatize the parks.

Now, I don't want to seem ho-hum about Cypress because it's a very nice place. We saw a lot of hawks and some baldheaded eagles and even a grouse with chicks. However, it was parks day and at the mountaintop there were all kinds of interpretive hikes and activities and merrymaking. We, meanwhile, were assigned to setup down at the look out. So no hiking or big fun for us. Nope. Just a booth in a little pullover and lots of talking to people who were stopping to check out the view of the city.

By the way, no one pays for the parking in this lot. Maybe that's why everyone I talked to would sign the petition. The meter is the next best thing to invisible. Our booth couldn't be set up in a very central place, so I did a lot of walking and more than enough burning.

Also notable is that no one seems to check whether or not people pay for parking in this lot. I'm sure it has happened. But it didn't happen while I was there. I did see a provincial parks employee while I was there (a mighty endangered species!). He was a nice guy (they almost always are). He let me know he was one of just two provincial employees left to monitor five parks. His department used to have six people and one less park. I guess that's the Liberals idea of 'progress'. He was happy to see us trying to improve the situation.

Being so close to the city, we met a fair share of WCWC members, which is nice. Committee members are always good for conversation (a least at a booth; door-to-door is a mixed bag. If you didn't know, I've spent the last two and a half years as a WCWC canvasser). They're such an eager bunch, wanting to know how this project is going and if we're going to get involved in that issue, such and such, with some whatnot. I've never thought that much about the RAV line but, yeah, the Arbutus corridor does seem to make more sense. And on the whole sea-to-sky tunnel versus 4-lane highway thing, Mayor Wood sure sounds like he's making stuff up. Environmental impact? I'm not convinced that's the biggest concern for the West Van city council. Ah, infrastructure: the debate rages on.

I'd like to thank Andy and Sean for volunteering their time on this project. The heat made doing the whole job by myself difficult, so you guys really made it possible.

And, honestly, though the location wasn't as exotic as some of the other spots I've been, after being away from home for so long, being able to go back to my apartment at the end of the day and just relax with my girlfriend is a nice thing.

Golden Ears is next.

The Okanagan Report, part 2: Marmots and Quails and Bear Creek - Oh, My!

Bear Creek is nice spot just off of the highway leading from Westbank to Kelowna. It’s primarily a campground but is also a popular picnic, swimming and boating area. To camp there one needs to make reservation. I met a lady there who didn’t make reservations, but had been assigned a spot in the parking lot where she could camp in her RV for the same $22 a night fee that all the other campers paid. It’s not like the parking lot was needed for cars…

Yes, Bear Creek the popular day-use area is now very much primarily a campground. Most of the locals had forsaken it the weekend I was there. To qualify, much of the weekend the weather was pretty sketchy with occasional light showers. And you know how the Okanaganers (I’m sure that’s not a real word but the meaning should be obvious) are: if it’s not like 30 or 40 degrees out, they keep their clothes on. But the other reason to come to Bear Creek is an exciting hiking trail. And to rub salt in the wounds, despite the shiny new parking meters to provide all the shiny new revenue, the trail was closed because of safety reasons. Apparently, a fence along the route, which is supposed to keep you from falling off the edge of the trail, was down and so they closed it up. I talked to some hikers that didn’t mind a little danger with their great outdoors and they told me that after talking to one of the parks staff they were told that the fence wasn’t getting fixed because of budget problems and that the trail wasn’t all that bad. One of the hikers gave his (admittedly not expert) estimate of the problem at “a couple of hundred bucks to fix”.

So let’s talk about the new meters:

I went Okanagan Lake Park and put a loonie in the meter. It was one of those manual push-in-the-coin-slot-out-comes-the-ticket-from-the-other-slot kinda meters (if you know parking meters, I think that description should work; I don’t know any technical names for the different kinds). Long story short, it stole my money and it didn’t give me a parking ticket.

At Sun-Oka Beach, the fancy digital meter jammed up and people told me that though they put as much as $6 in it, they still only got a ticket for an hour of parking.

Lastly, the meters don’t give change. I don’t know how advanced these things would have to be, but I’m pretty sure giving change is not a new technology. The digital ones talk(!) for pity’s sake (“insert payment now”, “collect your ticket from the slot”, “have a nice day”, etc.). And yet if you want one hour of parking ($1) and put in a twoonie, it keeps your dollar. That’s cold, dude.

Moving on, the press in Kelowna came out to see me. The Daily Courier ended up putting the story about the new meters on the front page (next to the story with the headline ‘Bloody Retribution?’ I swear I had nothing to do with that one). If you look on our site, you should find a link to it. While normally a very right-wing paper (I remember a story, from last year while I was WCWC canvass directing out there, about the importance of allowing grizzly bear hunting for trophy purposes), they came out on our side on this one and even wrote an additional editorial on the same subject backing us up. Thank you’s go out to Ron Seymour and the chief editor. Follow up, guys.

So despite the relatively low turn out of people to the park, those that were there backed the petition pretty strongly. There were also a couple more RV’s camped in the parking lot by the time I was finished.

One morning when I showed up, there were 4 cars parked on the highway just outside the park, apparently avoiding the pay parking in an obvious no-parking zones.

On a personal note, thank you to Garry for having me over to watch wrestling and to Sam, Jo, Serena, Josh and Terry for having me at the house boat. It had no power or plumbing and there was a bullet hole through one of the windows (from a previous owner, I was assured). It was great. Thanks guys. You all rule.

The last thing I’ll mention is that there are a lot of marmot colonies around Okanagan Lake. The marmots like to sun themselves on the side of the road but get spooked when cars drive by, running across the road to their burrows. So, my advice is to drive carefully. Also, watch out for quails. They do the same thing.

The Okanagan Report, part 1: Sun-Oka Beach

So I’m back from the Okanagan and I write this having just come out of the shower. It’s a nice feeling. I managed to have only two showers during the fortnight I was on the road, so being clean has regained a sense of novelty for me. My noble steed (read: my car) is in the shop getting attended to now as well. He’s a ’91 and has had a very busy time recently. I’m very happy that he didn’t breakdown on the road and wish him a swift and inexpensive recovery from his various ailments. Alright, let’s get down to business…

The mission this time out was to protest the new user fees that the Liberals have instituted in provincial parks. Last year, parking meters were put in 28 parks around the lower mainland and Vancouver Island. This year that number was boosted to 41, with 13 parks in the Okanagan getting new meters. Parking will cost you $1 an hour or either $3 or $5 for the day. There’s also a $50 annul parking pass that you can use at any of these parks. It’s a good deal if you’re going to make at least 17 trips to a $3-to-park-park or 11 trips to a $5 one. I know that sounds like a lot of visits but just think: that’s the introductory price; the pass was supposed to have jumped to $75 in April of this year, but it’s running late. Maybe they’re waiting for the popularity of paying-to-park to sink in.

Oh, and if your wondering, the new fees are a direct result of the government cutting the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection's budget. They then formed the Recreation Stewardship Panel and mandated them to find the missing budget in the pockets of park visitors, even though provincial parks pay for themselves many times over already. Just think of the new fees coupled with reduction of services offered this year as penance for your years of responsible tax-paying citizenship. Hey, no one said life was fair.

Sun-Oka Beach was my first stop. I began on Canada Day. It was a hot, sunny day in the rainshadow. And while it was the busiest I ever say the park, the parking lot only managed to fill up to about 70% capacity. Understand this: In years past, if you didn’t get there by 10am or so, you wouldn’t get a spot; they’d turn you away at the entrance. This place was crazy popular. But business was down this year. The response was great from the brave souls who continued to visit despite the meters. Petitions got filled in record time.

Some cool people I met there:

An 80 year-old woman and her 90 year-old husband - He had been
visiting the beach for 71(!) years. They came several times a week
(I saw them there three times in four days). She wondered what was
happening in the world when the beach was no longer free.

The park manager - Young and handsome, he was put in charge of the
park after only 6 weeks on the job because the kind of money the job
pays doesn’t lend itself to responsible management and his old bosses
got fired for not caring enough.

The contractor for 16 Okanagan parks - This is the head boss man in
the parks around the lake. He took down the signs I had attached to
the meters (‘Don’t like the meters? Sign the petition!’) because they’re
against the rules, but he did sign the petition. That enabled me to
namedrop and convince the seasonal employees, who were oft hesitant
out of fear of reprimand, to sign also. In addition, he informed me that,
“This job used to be the greatest. Now, it just totally sucks.”

The lady at the concession stand - For her, I have the most pity. Not
only is her business suffering due to the decrease in visitorship, she
has to provide those who come to visit with change to feed the hated
meters. On July 2nd, the Friday after Canada Day she told me she had
gotten $400 in change from the bank, enough to last the whole weekend.
It was gone in the one day. The meters ate most of it.

I found a place to camp at the Dickinson Family Farm. They charge $10 a night to sleep in their cherry orchard. It has running water, an outdoor sink, a toaster, a fridge, and (most importantly) is pretty quiet. I’m 99% sure that it’s the best deal for accommodation in Summerland.

But Sun-Oka was just the first half of my trip. Tune in to my next entry for the excitement of Bear Creek. It’s gonna have everything: closed trails, the front page of the newspaper, the nitty-gritty about the meters and much, much. Ah, man, I can’t wait!

Manning Park

June 17 - 21 and June 24 - 27

Here is my report from Manning Park, where the government has allowed logging in the 'doughnut hole', an uprotected area surrounded by the park. It was promised protection but left out of the park because of an existing (unprofitable) mining claim. It is also spotted owl habitat.

I started off the BC Parks Lover's Roving Tour on a bit of a false start. Andy Miller and I made for the Cayuse Flats and, with much ado, got all the banners, poles, etc. stashed and ready to go for the next morning. Unfortunately, the next morning, the highway crew that's doing upgrades on the road right at the Cayuse Flats made it impossible to actually do a kiosk there. Is it a coincidence that the clearcuts in the Manning Park doughnut hole are being obfuscated by highway developments? I'll leave it up to you to decide.

So after an fairly long debate with a logger from the highway crew (who insisted that the northern spotted owl was [a] not a native species, [b] not being harmed by logging and, finally, [c] that the sole pressing threat to its survival is predation by the barn owl), I packed up camp and head on down the road to the West Gate.

It turn out that the West Gate is a windy place. A wind canyon kinda windy place. I came home shortly after the discovery that putting up the banners and tarp kiosk in such a place by myself was simply beyond my abilities.

So the next week...

Andy and I went out together again and set everything up. It was like a scene from Moby Dick, our heroic struggle against the mighty elements, trying to keep the kiosk grounded while the gods themselves sought to set them a flight on torrents of air. But I digress. With a lot of rope and foot long nails, we managed to keep the booth and banners in place. Then, it was show time. We worked our mojo and got signatures from the passersby, many of who were genuinely disheartened to hear that even parks (and their doughnut holes) aren't safe from chainsaws with the Liberals in power.

Beyond the kindness of many people who gave me food (thank you all for the watermelon, chips, and especially the Toblerone), the most memorable visitor I got was the gentleman who, once I told him that there was logging up the road, told me I was a 'pinko' (among a list of other none-too-repeatable terms). Once I got home, I asked my girlfriend Meagan what a 'pinko' was. It turns out a 'pinko' is a communist. So, on top of everything else, I learned a new word.

So that was pretty much Manning. Our highway signs (STOP LOGGING the heart out of MANNING PARK) faced early weekend vandalism and end-of-weekend sign-napping. Seriously, the last sign just vanished. It baffles the mind honestly, but what can you do? We got a bundle of signatures on the petitions and I came home.

Okanagan, ho!