{"id":96970,"date":"2026-07-28T11:15:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2026\/07\/28\/bc-parks-calls-it-a-luxuriously-forested-sanctuary-just-dont-try-to-visit\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T11:15:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:15:47","slug":"bc-parks-calls-it-a-luxuriously-forested-sanctuary-just-dont-try-to-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2026\/07\/28\/bc-parks-calls-it-a-luxuriously-forested-sanctuary-just-dont-try-to-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"BC Parks calls it a luxuriously forested sanctuary. Just dont try to visit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>                                            Peter Cressey has been visiting the Carmanah and Walbran valleys for decades. Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the sprawling spider-web of cutblocks and logging roads that mark the island\u2019s interior, these two valleys form one of southern Vancouver Island\u2019s largest remaining intact old-growth ecosystems. They\u2019re home to centuries-old spruce trees, gnarled cedars and plants and animals that live in few other places.    \u201cIt\u2019s not just the trees,\u201d Cressey, who volunteers with Friends of Carmanah Walbran, says. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole bunch of threatened species, the marbled murrelet, the screech owl, the specklebelly lichen and the dromedary jumping slug. There\u2019s a whole list of very unique species that are facing some serious threats.\u201dIn the early 1990s, Cressey was arrested at a logging blockade in the region, part of a campaign that convinced the province to expand what was then called Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park to include parts of the Walbran in 1995.Today, the park is known as Carmanah Walbran. BC Parks describes it as \u201caluxuriously forested sanctuarythat is without a doubt one of the most remarkable wild places on Vancouver Island.\u201d But right now, they also say it\u2019s \u201cinaccessible by vehicle\u201d and that \u201cthe day-use areas, campground, and trails are currently unmaintained.\u201d     That\u2019s because it\u2019s blocked by landslides on one side and locked metal gates on the other. BC Parks didn\u2019t provide a timeline for restoring park access. Instead, they directed questions to Tsawak-qin Forestry, the company responsible for both the metal gates and, they say, for clearing the landslides.          In 2025, a blockade was staged in the Walbran valley to protest logging of old-growth forest. Photos: Mike Graeme \/ The Narwhal    In an emailed statement, Tsawak-qin told The Narwhal that they are \u201cworking with government and others to open access to the western, public access point of the park,\u201d but didn\u2019t offer a timeline. They promised to \u201cprovide more information when it becomes available.\u201d    Carmanah Walbran is one of many outdoor recreation areas in B.C. accessed by resource roads. Cressey and others say its ongoing closure raises questions about public access to public lands, and the province\u2019s management of thousands of kilometres of resource roads that connect British Columbians to some of the province\u2019s most spectacular back country regions.    Ministry approves gates to close park to recreational users, citing \u2018safety concerns\u2019    When Cressey talks about the logging protests of the 1990s, a period sometimes called the War in the Woods when activists and First Nations fought old-growth logging in Clayoquot Sound and up into the Carmanah Walbran region, there\u2019s a hint of pride in his voice. But he\u2019s also learned a lot since then, and though his passion for protecting old-growth forests remains, his tactics have changed.   Today, Cressey\u2019s with the Friends of Carmanah Walbran, which is focused on protecting ancient forests through education and community building. Much of their work centres on the central Walbran Valley, a stand of old-growth forest just outside the southeastern edge of Carmanah Walbran Park. On a map, it looks like someone took an ice cream scoop to the park boundary. Torrance Coste, associate director of the Wilderness Committee, calls it \u201cthe bite.\u201d    That bite is not part of the park itself. According to Coste, activists remember it was left out at the request of logging companies. But decades of activism have kept the saws at bay, and the area is currently covered by a provincial old-growth deferral. Within it lies a network of trails and campsites built and maintained by Cressey and the Friends of Carmanah Walbran. Some of these trails, like the Anderson Lake and Marble Canyon trails, cross into the provincial park, while others sit outside the boundary entirely. All of them are maintained by volunteers.        For years, Friends of Carmanah Walbran have used trail maintenance trips and educational gatherings to bring people into the region to advocate for protecting the old-growth forests that still lie outside the park boundary. But this spring, something changed.    In March, Cressey learned that the province approved Tsawak-qin Forestry\u2019s request to put locked gates on roads east of Carmanah Walbran Park. These gates blocked access to both the bite and the trails from it that cross into the park.    Cressey reached out to Tsawak-qin to request permission to pass through the gates for a birding event in early July.Initially, he says, the company seemed open to letting the birders through. He even offered to give them the names of everyone participating \u2014 a group of birders, artists and scientists. But eventually, Tsawak-qin told him they couldn\u2019t allow the group through the gates. Cressey says they told him it was due to \u201cpublic and worker safety issues.\u201dTsawak-qin didn\u2019t directly address questions about the birders, but noted in an emailed statement to The Narwhal that the gates were put in place due to \u201cseveral incidents [that] have occurred recently in the Walbran area that endangered people and caused damage to property,\u201d citing a burnt bridge deck, damaged bridge cables and blocked drainage structures.    In August 2025, a blockade was established in B.C.\u2019s Walbran valley to protest logging of old-growth forest before and lasted months before being removed by injunction. Tsawak-qin Forestry didn\u2019t specifically cite the blockade in its statements to The Narwhal, but said \u2018several incidents\u2019 had caused damage to property and endangered people. Photo: Mike Graeme \/ The Narwhal    This \u201ccreated unsafe road conditions,\u201d Tsawak-qin Forestry said. \u201cIn addition, there is evidence of members of the public entering active work sites,\u201d it added, though they did not give specific examples.    There was a blockade in the Walbran between August and December 2025, which led to 13 arrests. The company didn\u2019t reference this blockade directly, but Cressey thinks that it, and the continued presence of a nearby protest encampment, contributed to the company wanting to shut down access.    On July 16, social media accounts from this camp posted a video of two people locked to one of the Tsawak-qin gates. In the video, one masked figure explained the action as a response to the company cutting off public access to \u201cpublic land.\u201d    British Columbia\u2019s Forest and Range Practices Act allows resource companies to request permission to install and lock gates to prevent public access on back country resource roads. According to the province, these approvals are granted when \u201cuse of the road would likely endanger property, public health or public safety.\u201d   In the case of the eastern Carmanah Walbran gates, Coste says it\u2019s unclear what the justification is, or what threat a birding event might pose to property or safety.    He worries that approvals for these kinds of gates have been increasing since the Fairy Creek blockades where more than 1,100 people were arrested opposing old-growth logging in the Fairy Creek watershed near Port Renfrew in 2020 and 2021.     When asked whether this was true, the Ministry of Forests declined to comment, explaining that finding the answer was \u201ca complex ask during the middle of field season when resources for data gathering are limited.\u201d    Coste thinks logging companies could be trying to solve that problem by \u201cclosing access to vast swaths of the island [and] the province to any and all other user groups.\u201d Tsawak-qin did not comment when asked about any direct connections between logging protests and their request to gate these roads.    \u201cIf logging companies have a problem with blockaders, that\u2019s a political issue that they should take to the province, not deal with it with gates out on the back roads,\u201d Coste says. \u201cIf companies can\u2019t log without fear of people getting in the way of their operations, they have a social licence problem.\u201d    Why aren\u2019t public land access groups talking about the Carmanah Walbran?     For Cressey, part of the problem is that BC Parks isn\u2019t clear about what qualifies as access points to Carmanah Walbran. The park\u2019s website lists directions to access the park\u2019s western side and the Ministry of Environment and Parks says that \u201cthere are no developed BC Parks facilities or designated BC Parks trails within the [eastern] portion of the park.\u201d But the Ministry of Forests recommended park access routes on both the eastern and western sides of the park, adding that the public could still pass the eastern gates on foot.    For Cressey, using the western side of the park might have been the easiest solution to his locked gate problem. But the road on that side, called Rosander Main, was also blocked, not by gates, but by landslides that had come down in the fall of 2025.    Neither BC Parks nor the Ministry of Forests have plans to clear the landslides. The responsibility for clearing that road, they say, lies with the logging companies that use it.    Coste says that\u2019s a problem, calling it \u201canti-democratic\u201d that a private company can control public access to the park. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge concern that access to an iconic provincial park like Carmanah depends on whether or not a private company is logging next to the park.\u201d    As short-term closures at Joffre Lakes Park near Pemberton and Botanical Beach, a popular section of Juan de Fuca Park on Vancouver Island, both of which have instated reconnection periods for rights-holding First Nations members, have prompted an outcry, Coste says it\u2019s notable the ongoing access issues at Carmanah Walbran Park haven\u2019t gotten more attention.    Since 2023, the popular Pipi7\u00edyekw\/Joffre Lakes Park has been temporarily closed for \u201creconnection periods\u201d to give the busy park a break and permit members of the Li\u0301l\u0313wat and N\u2019Quatqua First Nations to spend time on their traditional territory. These closures have prompted backlash among groups like the Public Land Use Society, though the organization has not commented on the closure of Carmanah Walbran Park. Photo: Paige Taylor White \/ The Narwhal    \u201c[Carmanah Walbran] has been closed for 10 times longer than Joffre Lakes will be closed this year,\u201d Coste says. \u201cAnd not a peep from the folks that are up in arms about the Joffre closure.\u201d    Among the groups concerned about the Joffre Lakes closures is the Public Land Use Society, an organization with close ties to the mining industry that was founded in 2025 to advocate for public land access. Among their first slate of directors was Caroline Elliott. A former BC Conservative leadership candidate, she has been a leading voice in opposing British Columbia\u2019s decision to work with the L\u00edl\u0313wat and N\u2019Quatqua Nations on annual, short-term closures at Joffre Lakes, calling them an \u201cancestry-based park closure.\u201d          In 2025, the government\u2019s decision to unilaterally shorten the temporary closure of Pipi7\u00edyekw\/Joffre Lakes Park for the L\u00edl\u0313wat and N\u2019Quatqua First Nations\u2019 reconnection period triggered protests along the highway. Photos: Paige Taylor White \/ The Narwhal    When The Narwhal reached out to the Public Land Use Society, its executive director, Warren Mirko, wasn\u2019t aware that Carmanah Walbran Park was closed.    \u201c[The Public Land Use Society] has not yet heard from the public regarding this site and was unaware of the access issues,\u201d Mirko wrote in an email. But while he agreed it was a concern, he differentiated it from Joffre Lakes, describing the latter as \u201ca deliberate government-supported closure of a popular provincial park.\u201dFor Coste, the lack of attention to the Carmanah Walbran issue \u201cunderscores that it\u2019s not really about access to the land and access to provincial protected areas\u201d for groups like Mirko\u2019s, but about opposing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which was passed with unanimous consent in B.C. in 2019 but has since become a locus of controversy.In his emailed statement, Mirko wrote that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and \u201cother issues surrounding government\u2019s reconciliation initiatives and agreements are central matters in respect of public access and provincial governance over Crown land.\u201d   Access to parks is a province-wide problem in B.C.    While Mirko and Coste don\u2019t agree on much when it comes to reconciliation and parks, both have concerns about how British Columbia manages resource roads. While Coste is worried about the road leading to Carmanah Walbran, Mirko is focused on an access road to the Incomappleux Valley near Revelstoke in the B.C. Interior. In June, his organization joined the Quad Riders Association of British Columbia in questioning the province\u2019s decision to decommission t he Incomappleux Forest Service Road.    Access to parts of the Incomappleux Valley, near Revelstoke, B.C., also relies on resource roads. The provincial government\u2019s plans to decommission a forest service road rely on the same rationale used to put gates on the road into Carmanah Walbran Park. Photo: Paul Zizka \/ Nature Conservancy of Canada    According to the province, the deactivation is due to road damage and plans to establish a conservancy, a type of park in which human access and natural resource development is limited to preserve ecological, recreational or cultural values, in the upper valley. But Mirko and the Quad Riders argue this closure would unfairly cut off property and trail access, questioning the province\u2019s \u201cauthority to proceed\u201d in a press release.The province outlined its authority in a document released in April 2025, citing the Forest and Range Practices Act \u2014 the same rationale used to approve the gates east of Carmanah Walbran Park.    Issues with resource roads are nothing new for Louise Pedersen, executive director of the Outdoor Recreation Council of British Columbia.    \u201cOutdoor recreation in British Columbia has co-evolved with forestry and other types of resource extraction,\u201d Pedersen says. \u201cSo a lot of our access uses resource roads.\u201d    But those roads, Pedersen explains, aren\u2019t managed for recreation. When the logging or mining operations pull out, they decommission the roads and leave them unmaintained, often cutting off access to recreation areas in Crown lands. And with an estimated more than 600,000 kilometres of resource roads criss-crossing the province, it\u2019s a big deal \u2014 one that Pedersen says is getting worse.    \u201cIn the last decades, things really have been accelerating,\u201d she says. \u201cWith these big climate and weather events that we\u2019ve been having, we are seeing a lot more kinds of disastrous outcomes like flooding and wildfires closing down these resource roads.\u201dOn top of that, Pedersen says, there are increasing numbers of \u201clogging companies getting out of areas where they\u2019ve been operating for a long time,\u201d leaving roads unmaintained. In some places this is simply the result of logging operations finishing. In others, it\u2019s being blamed on downturns in the forestry sector and sawmill closures. But whatever the reason, when the companies pull out, the roads revert to the care of the province.   \u201cWhen not being actively used for industrial purpose[s] the roads are classified as a \u2018wilderness road\u2019 and only maintained to address environmental concerns,\u201d a statement from the Ministry of Forests explained.    The problem, Pedersen explains, is \u201cthe province is not required to facilitate access or maintain these resource roads to support outdoor recreation.\u201d So when you get a case like Carmanah Walbran, where the road was blocked by landslides, and no logging companies are working beyond them, no one is obligated to clear them.    It\u2019s something she hopes British Columbia\u2019s new outdoor recreation strategy will change. Launched in May, the province plans to create \u201ca modernized framework for high-value recreation access and resource roads.\u201dPedersen isn\u2019t sure yet what that means. But while she\u2019s waiting, the Outdoor Recreation Council has launched a survey to gather information about priority roads where access to trailheads, campsites and parks is currently cut-off or at risk.    \u201cI\u2019m sure we\u2019ll find that there are going to be many thousands of kilometres that are of very limited interest, but there are some that will just kind of float to the top as priority resource roads,\u201d she says.    In the meantime, the Carmanah and Walbran valleys remain nearly inaccessible to the public. Coste worries about the long-term implications of cutting off public access to parks, especially ones with threatened ecosystems.    \u201cWhen people can\u2019t visit these forests, can\u2019t walk through them and see what\u2019s at stake for themselves, it becomes much easier for old-growth logging to continue out of public view,\u201d Coste says. \u201cAccess is a critical part of building public understanding and support for protecting what little remains.\u201d                             <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Cressey has been visiting the Carmanah and Walbran valleys for decades. Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the sprawling spider-web of cutblocks and logging roads that mark the island\u2019s interior, these two valleys form one of southern Vancouver Island\u2019s largest remaining intact old-growth ecosystems. They\u2019re home to centuries-old spruce trees, gnarled cedars and plants [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":583,"featured_media":96971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,2338,1],"tags":[116,2337],"class_list":["post-96970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-northwest-territories","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-northwest-territories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/583"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}