MT. ELPHINSTONE BIODIVERSITY: Hidden and Rare
Helmets and happy smiles on young people enjoying the gently sloped trails through the proposed Mt. Elphinstone park.
Overgrown jeep track trails great for recreational strolls zigzag through the mature forest.
Although different fungus (mushroom) species fruit during all seasons, for most of the year the vast biological wealth of Mt. Elphinstone Forest is hidden under a lush carpet of moss. When the fall rains come, this forest explodes in a riotous display of life. You'll find spectacular mushrooms like the handsome bolete, rare oldgrowth-dependent mushrooms like the blue chanterelle, critically endangered mushrooms like Tricholoma apium and gourmet delights like the pine mushroom.
Mt. Elphinstone: A day trip or a weekend getaway
Come to Mt. Elphinstone forest. For people living in the Lower Mainland, it is the closest far-away place you can imagine. Just a 90-minute trip from Vancouver by car, the journey includes a beautiful 40-minute ferry ride across Howe Sound. Don't cut your hike short worrying about getting home by dark. Although day trips are easy enough, the surrounding area offers lots of accommodation including hotels, B&Bs, hostels and seasonal camping.
When you aren't hiking or biking in the serene, biodiversity-rich proposed Mt. Elphinstone Park area, you can enjoy the art, culture and fun offered by the super-friendly people who live on the Sunshine Coast.
For information on accommodation please call the Gibsons Chamber of Commerce at 604-886-2325 or fax 604-886-2379. Email:gibsonchamber@sunshine.net
Mt. Elphinstone has characteristics that make its forest stand out amongst all the forests near Vancouver. Its soils have been undisturbed for centuries, allowing evolution of unique species. One-half of the mushroom species living in the Elphinstone Forest may be new to science. The mature forests provide the deep shade loved by both the mushrooms and an incredible variety of pale plants without chlorophyll: coralroot orchid, pinesap, Indian pipe, candystick and gnome plant. Elphinstone is the world's first collection site for a number of new nematode (worm) species. Huge dead trees and massive logs provide homes for five species of salamander, five woodpecker species, the blue-listed screech owl and more than twenty-five species of cavity-nesting birds. Mountain creeks are home to the rare and vulnerable tailed frog.
Undoubtedly many more "surprises" will be discovered here...but only if the forest is saved. In 1999 biologists found the snow dewberry--a species disappearing in other parts of B.C. and found nowhere else on the Sunshine Coast--on Mt. Elphinstone. But its Elphinstone habitat is threatened by road-building and logging.
Given the uniqueness of Mt. Elphinstone's forest, if the Ministry of Forests allows current logging plans to go ahead, species will be eliminated before scientists "discover" they are even there.
