A brief history of Burns Bog
Near the centre of Burns Bog with Vancouver behind. Photo credit: Don DeMille
5,000 years B.P- Burns Bog began to develop with deposits of silt and clays in the Fraser River delta. Marsh plants, such as sedges and rushes began to grow.
3,500 years B.P - Layers of rotting plants accumulated over clay, turning to peat. Surface of Burns Bog began to rise above flood level. Shrubs became established and eventually sphagnum moss, the keystone bog species.
For Centuries - First Nations people used the area for hunting and gathering.
1882 Marquess of Lorne, Canada's fourth Governor General, bought most of Burns Bog for $1 per acre, under an agreement (unfulfilled) to reclaim the land.
1905 Vancouver entrepreneur Dominic Burns bought the bog for $26,000 and gave the bog his name.
1940s - Peat harvesting began in Burns Bog. Methods changed over time, from hand harvest (1940s) to mechanical stripping of the top layer of sphagnum (1950s and 1960s) to hydraulic harvest by dredge-like mechines (1950s to 1980s). Ditches were dug to help drain off water and aid peat harvest. A narrow gauge railway was built to transport peat.
1971 - local citizens in Delta began building boardwalk trails, putting up signs and conducting tours in the Delta Nature Reserve.
1981- McLaughlin and Associates, an Ontario-based development company, bought the bog, holding it under a "daughter" company, Western Delta Properties Corporation (Western Delta Lands).
early 1980s - Plans were developed for a $5 billion deep-sea port and industrial development site involving about 2,000 hectares of Burns Bog. A ship canal would have been dredged into Burns Bog. Plans died when Delta Council was unable to muster enthusiasm from the federal and provincial governments.
1988 - Western Delta Lands presented a $10 billion plan to turn the bog into a 100,000 person city. Nothing came of it.
1988 - Burns Bog Conservation Society formed to take the lead on the fight to save the bog. Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC) co-published with Burns Bog Conservation Society its first educational paper on Burns Bog.
1992 - Western Delta Lands received local government permission for a $94 million race track on 140 hectares of the bog, but the plan never got out of the starting gate when the B.C. Racing Commission turned thumbs down.
1993 - "Burns Bog Analysis" report presented to B.C. Government by Catherine Berris Associates, assessed the bog as having high potential as a protected area: "Burns Bog has high values to wildlife in general." "The bog contains relic plant species that are very unusual for the south coast of B.C." "Burns Bog has been cited as being the finest example of a raised bog in the northwest of North America." "The bog is unique regionally, provincially, nationally and perhaps internationally from an ecosystem perspective."
1994 - Provincial Government offered Western Delta Lands $27 million to buy 1,200. hectares of the bog. Western Delta Lands turned them down.
1996 - a cigarette-started fire burned about 400 acres or 4 percent of Burns Bog.
1997 - Burns Bog Conservation Society presented 25,000 name petition to the B.C. government, calling on it to preserve the bog as an ecological reserve.
April, 1998 - Western Delta Lands sold its bog lands to Delta Fraser Properties (DFP-a new company with mostly the same principal players).
Fall, 1998 - Burns Bog Conservation Society, in partnership with GVRD and other groups, came close to purchasing 1,400 hectares of DFP land, for $10 million plus a tax receipt. DFP had defaulted on its taxes and loan payments.
Feb. 3, 1999 - B.C. Government announced its boondoggle of a Burns Bog deal loaning $25 million to bail out DFP in exchange for which the company would donate about 1,200 hectares of the bog to be protected and would develop about 800 ha to house the PNE and an "integrated, themed retail-leisure-entertainment centre". Delta Council would have to rezone the land.
Feb. 11, 1999 - Gordon Campbell, B.C. Leader of the Opposition, visited Burns Bog and declared his support for preserving the whole bog.
Feb. 16, 1999 - Delta Council voted unanimously to reject the Disney-like theme park for Burns Bog urging the B.C. government to purchase or expropriate the bog and protect it against any development.
Feb. 17, 1999 - B.C. Small Business and Tourism Minister Ian Waddell said he would respect Delta's wishes and scrap plans to relocate the PNE to Burns Bog.
Feb. 20, 1999 - DFP stated publicly (reported by Larry Pynn in the Vancouver Sun), "The community hasn't grasped the situation. Most people think that turning down the development project means nothing will happen on the site." Before it formally applies for rezoning to allow development, the company said it wants to know if the Provincial Government wants to buy its 2,200 hectare site. "We're waiting to hear. We're just looking for a creative solution, a fair process and fair compensation. It's now essentially in the government's hands."
