Cathedral Grove
With 800 year old Douglas firs reaching heights of over 80 metres and some giants measuring up to 9 metres in circumference - the park offers visitors the chance to experience one of the last remaining stands of giant Douglas fir in BC. Photo: Ron Smid
One of BC’s most beloved parks, MacMillan Park, which is part of Cathedral Grove, is threatened from overuse, logging at its boundaries, blow-down of its towering ancient Douglas firs and a five-acre parking lot proposed to be built in critical elk winter feeding range. Located alongside Highway 4, the only highway leading to Port Alberni and Clayoquot Sound, MacMillan Park’s main problem is that it is too small.
For years, people assumed that the park included all of Cathedral Grove, extending several kilometers west of Cameron Lake on both sides of the valley-bottom highway. In reality, it is less than 160 hectares in size, which is less than half as big as Stanley Park in Vancouver. Over the years it has become evident that the park is simply too small to accomodate the heavy tourist visitor use today, which currently amounts to close to 1,000,000 annual visitors.
Logging giant, Weyerhaeuser, owns the unprotected adjacent forests of Cathedral Grove and has already logged extensively near Cathedral Grove’s giant Douglas firs. Since 2001, due to the request of surrounding communities and local governments, the company has temporarily ceased logging in the area in order to give the provincial government an opportunity to acquire the 500 remaining hectares of the Grove, however logging is not the only threat facing the park.
In October 2003, the provincial government announced that it was proceeding with a proposal for a 150-car pay parking lot. The parking lot would be located over 1.5 kilometres away from the existing parking lot adjacent to the giant trees and would involve logging five hectares of second growth forest.
