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.

How I got kicked out of Rathtevor Park

So the time had finally come to visit Rathtrevor Park and I made my way out there on a so-so Friday. Little did know that I would get such an excited reception…

This turned out to be a media bonanza. Well, sort of. The Vancouver Sun picked up the story (and called me ‘she’. Nice research, guys. But I guess I did call them a rag a few journals ago, so I guess I rest my case). The Nanaimo Daily News put us in there twice, before and after, so thank you Nelson Bennett. I wish more reporters were like you. But what happened you ask? I’m getting to that.

Okay, so my girlfriend and I had set up our kiosk and gathered about 60 signatures or so. Most people were quite supportive and all was going well, when a parks operator comes around to ask us what we’re doing. He was in his early twenties. I tell him about it and start to chat with him. You know, ‘how have the changes affected your park?’, ‘how do like the job?’, etc. This jerk just kept shrugging and saying, “That’s irrelevant.” About a minute later, two other parks operators roll up in their golf cart thing like they were cops and jump out. One was a middle age woman, the other a past middle age grey bearded man. “Start filming this, get what their doing on tape!” the woman instructs the man.

“Hi, I’m Micah from the Western Canada Wilderness Committee,” I explain. “I’ve been touring the parks getting petitions signed in an effort to get the government to reinstate the parks budget and get rid of the new user fees.”

“Do you have a permit?” I’m asked.

“No. Why would I need one? I’ve been to a lot of parks and never needed one before,” I respond.

“You’ve got a donation jar and a structure,” the lady said, pointing at my kiosk. “You’re going to have to go.”

“How about I put the jar away and I’ll just keep working?” I ask.

“No, you’re going to have to leave.”

“Can I talk to you supervisor,” I inquire politely.

“I am the supervisor,” she tells me, none to politely.

“Well, then how about and park ranger. You’re a private operator, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, fine,” she says. To the youngster she says, “Stay here and watch him.” Back to me she says, “Put that donation jar away right now!”

They returned with a park ranger, who politely explained that the donation jar could be interpreted as commercial activity and that I would need a permit to return. I try to suggest that I come back tomorrow and they pretend I’m not there but alas, to no avail.
So Meagan and I began to pack up our stuff. As the grey bearded man left, he commented at us, “I guess there isn’t enough money in tree hugging!” What a bunch of jerks.

So it turns out it was a bit of a moot point because the weather was awful the next day. The day after that I went to Gordon Bay and had about 80 people sign the petition. Remarkably only 3 people didn’t sign that day: an old man who could hear me very well, a German man whose English was negligible, and an economics student who just didn’t seem to think universal accessibility to public facilities was more important that a balanced budget (his older brother later signed and told me his brother was the black sheep of the family).

So what really happened at Rathtrevor? Nelson Bennett tried to find out. It turns out that nobody at the Parks Board could find the section in the Parks Act that prevented me from doing what I was doing. Neither could the supervisor at Rathtrevor who had me leave, nor the ranger who back them up. Once the donation jar was gone, I should have been left alone. So the private company didn’t like us and they had us leave ‘their’ park. He wrote a story saying pretty much that. He’s a cool guy, that Nelson.

Of note, it seems that Osprey, the company operating the park, knew that visitorship was going to be way down: they had blocked of half of the parking lot and turning it into RV camping. The rest of the parking lot didn’t get even close to busy. I was told that it used to be a very popular place to hang out. Also odd, was that the meter gave hourly options (so you could pay a dollar for one hour, two dollars for two hours, etc up to $5 for the day). No other machine I’ve seen offers that. Perhaps it was no coincidence that this machine also ate more money than any other machine I’ve seen this summer. It just kept happening. One lady had $5 eaten. I get the impression that these machines are not top of the line.

Next I’m going to post some letters, one by me, one by Bill Barisoff, which were in the Nanaimo Daily News (I love those guys!). Then I’ll get back to telling you about the last stops on the parks tour. Until then, peace.