Stoltmann Wilderness - Te courageous battle to create a national park
Volunteers measure huge old Doug fir in the Upper Elaho –Aug. 1999.
- by Joe Foy, Campaign Director
Our five-year-long campaign to preserve the Stoltmann Wilderness, located next to Whistler, B.C., is one of the toughest, wildest campaigns we've ever championed. All of us at the Wilderness Committee feel privileged to hike in this spectacular wilderness, experience its wonders and fight for its preservation. All of us are angered by its ongoing destruction.
Randy Stoltmann was a young West Vancouver outdoorsman, respected conservationist and former director and employee of the Wilderness Committee. h, was the first to propose - in April of 1994 - that the wildlands of the Upper Squamish and Upper Lillooet River Valleys be protected. His proposal described the area's outstanding features and highlighted the threat posed by impending clearcut logging. One month after submitting his proposal to the B.C. Government, Randy lost his life in a tragic ski-mountaineering accident.
Inspired by Randy's idea, we launched a new wilderness preservation campaign, naming it the "Stoltmann Wilderness" in his honour. Our Stoltmann Wilderness Provincial Park proposal encompassed 260,000 hectares of mountains, glaciers, and ancient-rainforested valleys.
In the spring of 1995 we began a trail-building project into the Upper Elaho Valley, which harbored the Stoltmann's largest remaining tract of oldgrowth forest. While scouting the trail route, WCWC volunteers were amazed to discover spectacular groves of oldgrowth Douglas fir and redcedar, the finest forests we'd seen in Greater Vancouver's Lower Mainland region.
Assistant Campaigner Chris Player uses Increment borer to determine age of a living Douglas fir growing In the Elaho's Millenium Grove — Aug. 1998
In 1996 the B.C. Government established a tightly controlled and secretive Lower Mainland Parks Planning process to select which of the Lower Mainland's precious unprotected wilderness areas would get park protection and which would be clearcut logged. Incredibly, Interfor, the main logging company actively clearcutting in the Stoltmann Wilderness, was one of the B.C. Government's hand-picked park planning participants but the Government's own B.C. Parks Branch was not!
The public was also locked out of the process. No public open-house meetings were ever held to solicit citizens' views on the proposed parks. Late in 1996, then-Premier Glen Clark, standing on a podium with Interfor President Bob Sitter, announced protection for only two small, sparsely-forested parts of the Stoltmann Wilderness: the Clendenning (an Upper Elaho tributary) and the Upper Lillooet Valley. The two parks totaled about 50,000 ha.
At the same time the B.C. government gave the go-ahead to Interfor to clearcut the lush ancient forests of the remaining unprotected areas of the Stoltmann Wilderness, including the Sims and Upper Elaho Valleys. Disgusted with the undemocratic nature of the government's Lower Mainland park planning process and with the shortsighted pro-logging decision, WCWC vowed to fight back.
In 1997, Interfor started aggressive roadbuilding and clearcut logging in the Sims and the Upper Elaho Valleys. In response, WCWC set up a temporary research station in the Upper Elaho Valley as a base camp for scientists and volunteers to collect information on the ancient forest's endangered flora and fauna. We raised funds for this project through our 1996 Stoltmann Art Auction. The sale of art generously donated to the Wilderness Committee by local painters and sculptors raised over $20,000.
Public Support Continues to Build for Canada's Foremost National Park Candidate
Loggers and logging-supporters were infuriated by our research camp. They set up an illegal road blockade on the main road into the Stoltmann Wilderness, preventing our volunteers and researchers from accessing our camp. Behind the blockade, Interfor began clearcut logging of "Sundown Grove" - a spectacular grove of ancient firs at the beginning of our Elaho hiking trail. Also behind the loggers' blockade, "persons unknown" dismantled our research camp and then mysteriously deposited it in pieces at the Squamish RCMP station. No charges were ever laid.
It took us six weeks of legal wrangling and court action to finally get the loggers' blockade down. With the help of many hard-working WCWC volunteers, we rebuilt our research camp in less than a week! Our researchers discovered that one Douglas tree felled by Interfor in Sundown Grove was over 1,150 years old (based on a stump-ring count). We cut a slice from the stump and dated it. It serves as a memento that inspires people to fight to save the other living ancient trees still left.
In early 1998, frustrated by the intransigence of the B.C. Government, we doubled the size of our proposed Stoltmann protected area to 500,000 hectares and called for a National Park. Our new proposal is bigger and better! It will be, when established, Canada's first National Park in B.C.'s spectacular Coast Mountains.
Our proposed Stoltmann National Park Reserve extends to the world-famous resort community of Whistler, B.C.—Canada's candidate for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It also connects through the Upper Bridge River and over the ice-capped Coast Mountains to the large Ts'ylos Park on the Chilcotin Plateau around Chilko Lake, protecting a critical wildlife corridor to the interior. In early 1999, several Whistler councilors became outspoken supporters of the proposed Stoltmann National Park Reserve.
In 1999 WCWC published a study by grizzly bear biologists Cam McTavish and Wayne McCrory who had conducted a grizzly habitat assessment of the Upper Elaho in the fall of 1998. They recommended an immediate halt to further logging and roadbuilding until the government develops and puts in place a grizzly conservation plan.
Thousand-year-old Douglas fir tree cut by Interfor In Stoltmann Wilderness - Photo taken Aug. 1999.
Dr. Neville Winchester and tree climber Kevin Jordan at WCWC's Stoltmann Research Camp - Sept. 1998.
In July of 1999 Interfor built a logging bridge over the Lava Creek Canyon, which put "Lava Grove" - a magnificent stand of ancient Douglas fir trees - at immediate risk. WCWC responded by setting up a new research camp - the Millennium Tree Camp - as a base for researchers to search out the area's big old trees. We soon discovered Douglas firs estimated to be 1,300 years old - the oldest living trees of their kind in Canada!
In August of 1999 several environmental activist groups, such as PATH (People's Action For Threatened Habitat); FAN (Forest Action Network) and Friends of the Elaho, tired of watching Interfor fell heritage grove after heritage grove, began a civil disobedience campaign. Direct action activists peacefully stood in front of Interfor's road building equipment in a bid to slow down the logging operation. Thirteen activists were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience in the Upper Elaho Valley.
On September 15, 1999 a mob of about 100 loggers beat up eight environmentalists camped in the Upper Elaho Valley. One of the conservationists assaulted was WCWC's Millennial Tree Camp Coordinator James Jamieson. On February 10, 2000 Squamish Crown Counsel finally laid criminal charges against three Squamish men and may lay further charges. A civil suit has also been launched against Interfor and individuals involved in the attack.
On October 18, 1999, Liberal Member of Parliament Charles Caccia, a former Liberal Environment Minister, presented his Private Member's Bill - Bill C-236 an Act to amend the National Parks Act (Stoltmann Wilderness) in the House of Commons. The Stoltmann Park Bill was hotly debated, with Reform M.P. John Reynolds as its harshest critic and Mr. Caccia its strongest defender. The Stoltmann Park Bill then "died without a vote" as is customary for Private Members' Bills.
In the meantime, tens of thousands of letters and cards (including our "3-part Stoltmann Opinion Poll Cards") have been mailed by people across the country to Prime Minister Chretien, urging the Federal Government to establish a Stoltmann National Park Reserve.
2000 is shaping up to be a crucial year in the battle for the Stoltmann Wilderness. Never has support for preservation been stronger nor conservation activists more determined to get the clearcutting stopped. The Squamish Nation, aboriginal title holders to the Elaho Valley, has called for a halt to logging there. Large conservation groups like Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network are letting Interfor customers around the world know that when they buy an Interfor product, it fuels more clearcut destruction in the Stoltmann Wilderness and Great Bear Rainforest.
The Wilderness Committee will be back in the Elaho Valley as soon as the snow melts in April. We'll continue mapping the Stoltmann's big trees and wildlife habitat. We aim to see the year 2000 as the year the Stoltmann is finally saved! We are counting on you to continue writing letters to the decision-makers, to volunteer for our projects and to donate much-needed dollars and materials to fuel our campaign and ultimately make it successful.
Want to know more? Ask and we will send you our Educational Reports and an up to date campaign report!
Big Dreams Can Come True - Stoltmann National Park
Vol. 17 No. 6 - Winter 1998
SAVE WHISTLER'S 1300-Year-Old Douglas Firs
Vol. 18 No. 7 - Summer 1999
For the latest info on WCWC's Stoltmann Campaign: www.wildemesscommittee.org/stoltmann/index.html
