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Sunshine Coast
Areas of interest Sunshine Coast: Tetrahedron, Caren Range, Mount Elphinstone Forest and Canada's oldest tree
The Caren Range is home to some of the oldest trees in Canada. Mount Elphinstone hosts a spectacular diversity of mushrooms, ranging from the gourmet delights of pine mushrooms to rare blue chanterelles and the critically endangered Ticholoma apium. Canada’s first active nesting site of the marbled murrelet was discovered in the forests of the Tetrahedron in 1992. The Sunshine Coast is only a short ferry ride from Vancouver, but it’s worlds away from the big city.
Activism and Action
The world’s oldest known yellow cedar was found in the Caren Range in 1991. Tragically, a chainsaw found it first, leaving only its 1835 year-old stump. A round cut of the stump, salvaged by the Wilderness Committee, now bears witness to the destruction waged in the forests of the Sunshine Coast even as “Forest Planning Processes” were underway.
The Wilderness Committee worked with local environmental groups throughout the 1990s and into the new century to gain protection for significant ecosystems on the Sunshine Coast, including the small fragments of old growth that remained after a century of industrial logging. Tetrahedron Provincial Park was created in 1995, Spipiyus Provincial Park was created in 1999, and a tiny Mt. Elphinstone Provincial Park was created in 2000, together protecting in total approximately 9000 Hectares.
Local citizens continue pressing the Provincial Government to expand both the Mt. Elphinstone Park and the Caren Range Park. Currently the Sunshine Coast has one of the lowest percentages of it land-base in parks of all regions of B.C.
