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The Protest

Habitat Encroachment

On 3 May 2006 a group of forest activists and members of the Friends of Cathedral Grove (FROG) took part in an exploratory expedition up the Cameron River into the secluded and near inaccessible Cathedral Canyon (right). They made the shocking discovery that big trees in the steep elevation forest are being clandestinely "high graded" for their commercial value and helicopter logged. This ecological crime was perpetrated by the despised and oft rebranded forest destruction corp Island Timberlands (aka Brookfield, Brascan, Weyerhaeuser, MacMillan Bloedel). The canyon is the centrepiece of the fight to expand habitat protection for Cathedral Grove to a total of 2000 hectares, a last chance to stop the extermination of the endangered Coastal Douglas fir ecosystem.

Cathedral Canyon, 3 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Left: "Cathedral Canyon: Five Years Later" by Richard Boyce In April 2006 I witnessed an assault on the international forest icon Cathedral Grove. Forest destroyer corp Island Timberlands (aka Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Brascan, Weyerhaeuser, MacMillan Bloedel) was heli-logging Cathedral Canyon. I returned in January 2011 to see what this primeval forest looks like today.

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Cathedral Canyon, 3 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Environmental leaders (from left: Ken Wu, Tara Z, Ingmar Lee and Annette Tanner)
Protest against the forest destroyer corp Island Timberlands, October 2009

Cathedral Canyon Exploring Expedition, 3 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

FROG has proposed that a "No Logging Buffer Zone" be established all along the Cameron River (right) to protect the ecological integrity of Cathedral Grove. It is unacceptable that hidden from public view – just up the river from the the most popular park in BC – unscrupulous logging companies are destroying the endangered ecosystem.

Phil Carson (FROG) organized an exploring expedition to Cathedral Canyon on 3 May 2006 with Geoff Senichenko (Research and Mapping Director, Western Canada Wilderness Committee) and Scott Tanner (former Qualicum Beach Councillor). They were surprized by the size of some of the ancient trees that they discovered, including rare old growth Douglas firs (left).

Fallen tree over Cameron River
Photo: Phil Carson

Ancient yew tree, Cathedral Canyon, 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

"Overall, of big trees growing on the easily accessible valley bottoms and flood plains like the astonishing little grove hidden away in the Cameron River canyon and in the basin of Labour Day Lake where the Cameron rises, 90 per cent is now thought to be gone. The stand we'd been looking at, like Cathedral Grove, represents only a tattered fragment of the immense Douglas fir forest that once covered the dry east coast of Vancouver Island." Stephen Hume supports the longstanding movement to expand Cathedral Grove MacMillan Park) by protecting the Cameron River watershed including its Labour Day Lake headwaters (right).

Ancient Forest Extermination Journalist Stephen Hume revisited Cathedral Canyon in July 2009 and again supported the call for an immediat moratorium on logging in the most endangered old growth forest types on Vancouver Island as proposed by the Wilderness Committee: "Let's just take a breather before it's all gone, for Pete's sake. And let's all remember that there's never a justification for taking 100 percent of anything – and that principle applies to our private as well as our public stewardship" Vancouver Sun (18 July 2006): Old Growth Worth Preserving.

Above Cathedral Grove, Labour Day Lake, 2007
Photo: Scott Tanner

TV crew, Cathedral Canyon, 6 November 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Standing heroically on one rocky promontory is a single old growth snag, the sort used by eagles as a perch with a panoramic outlook over the canyon far below (right). The spectacular scenery and towering rock faces were described by journalist Fred Davis who accompanied the tour. FROG member Phil Carson pointed out some of the huge Douglas firs whose thick bark had protected them for centuries from the fires that have swept through the canyon. But now they are ominously marked with blue tape, indicating they may soon be victims of the greedy logging corporations. "This area is a gem by anyone’s scale," Carson reminded the tour members: "It would be the crown jewel of a national park." In addition to the roots of the trees which stablize the soil from sliding downhill, Carson drew attention to the moss "which can hold 1,000 times it own weight in moisture." He warned that the logging companies were "treating the land like it's their own personal fiefdom and it's nobody’s business. It's everybody’s business" Parksville Qualicum Beach News (7 Nov. 2006): The Forest Outside the Park.

In early November 2006 environmentalists seeking to bring public attention to the unethical helicopter logging by Island Timberlands in the buffer areas to Cathedral Grove met a local TV crew and politician Scott Fraser, a member of the BC parliament, to give them a tour of the steep slope forest of Cathedral Canyon (left).

Snag tree, Cathedral Canyon, 2007
Photo: Phil Carson

Scott Fraser and Gary Murdock, Cathedral Canyon 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) inhabit Cathedral Canyon and when one regal specimen was pointed out to Scott Fraser by nature guide Gary Murdock (above), he was able to capture a picture of the magnificent bird with its outspread wings taking off from a snag tree (right).

Eagle, Cathedral Canyon, 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Cathedral Canyon, 2006 (Click to enlarge)
Mid Island Wilderness Committee

Access to Cathedral Canyon is difficult; visitors must first locate an unmarked logging road off the main highway to Port Alberni, then climb down a steep cliffside (right). Among those to take part in the challenging trek to see the ancient trees threatened by helicopter logging was the environmental journalist Stephen Hume who indignantly reported: "Each one of these trees, its life measured in close to a millennium, perhaps more, might make an hour's work for some logger's chainsaw. Nope. It ain't right. This shoot the last elephant, harpoon the last whale, cut the last big tree insanity has got to stop. This bit of ancient forest doesn't need to be turned into more toilet paper and two by fours. Somebody get on the phone to our premier. Tell him we want it saved" Vancouver Sun (3 December 2007): Ancient Giants. . . Face the Faller's Saw.

Cathedral Canyon is a jewel hidden at the base of Mt. Arrowsmith. It reaches a depth of 250 meters and runs for about six kilometers along Cameron River (left). A rare remnant of old Douglas fir forest survives here only because logging companies have not been able to easily access the timber. In 2006, however Island Timberlands began using helicopters to "highgrade" the big trees for their commercial value as wood products. In 2006 the Wilderness Committee launched a campaign to protect the greater Cathedral Grove area including the endangered ancient forest on the steep elevation slopes: Cathedral Grove Canyon.

Climbing down rock wall of Cathedral Canyon
Photo: Phil Carson

Cathedral Canyon, October 2005
Photo: Phil Carson

FROG members documented the helicopter logging of Cathedral Canyon in October 2006, a mile upstream from the boundary with the big tree stand. Next to Cameron River a freshly cut cedar stump, still red in colour, is seen in front of a tree girdled with pink tape (left). Such irresponsible riparian zone logging reduces biodiversity through soil erosion, tree blowdown, sediment and debris build up, river blockages, and so on.

The logging plans for Cathedral Canyon will have been originally drawn up by MacMillan Bloedel – Weyerhaeuser. Soon after Weyerhaeuser was sold to Brascan in 2005 it changed its name to Brookfield and formed spin off logging companies to carry out the unethical wrecking of the last old growth forest remnants on Vancouver Island.

Stumps, Cathedral Canyon, 3 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Cathedral Canyon, Vancouver Island, 9 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Cathedral Grove forest defenders are recording the vandalism in Cathedral Canyon (left). Brookfield Asset Management is a mega corporation with some $40 billion in assets. Who is taking responsibility for corporate forest crimes on both public and private owned forestlands? Cathedral Canyon lies at the base of Mt. Arrowsmith and is in the UNESCO Arrowsmith Biosphere Reserve. According to the reserve charter, full community consultation is required yet there is none. Phil Carson expresses his frustration and anger: "Who are these Forest Corporation Executives who strut around like they own our mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, wildlife, fish, drinking water, who lock the logging road gates and pretend they live in a world beyond human ethics and environmental sanity?"

An ancient yew tree found in Cathedral Canyon measures eight feet in circumference (left), one of the biggest on Vancouver Island. Yet this magnificent tree is in danger of destruction by Island Timberlands, formed in 2005 after the sale of Weyerhaeuser to Brascan – Brookfield.

BC forest crimes activists, Cathedral Grove
Photo: Phil Carson

Stop the Choppers! Heli logging old growth forest
Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Phoney Manliness and Big Tree Felling Videos of macho loggers armed with huge chainsaws killing ancient trees in BC are common. An example is a 2008 YouTube video "Westcoast Heli Logging," with over 48,000 viewers (right). Such brutal and senseless destruction is condoned in a province where the government engages in slick public relations campaigns and green rhetoric. Meanwhile the insatiable logging industry continues its carnage unabated, daring to attack even the Cathedral Grove Watershed, home of the world renowned big trees. Frequent takeovers and rebranding clear the logging companies of bad press and provide a smoke screen that obstructs public scrutiny.

Heli Logging Hell The vile and secretive plundering of Cathedral Canyon by clandestine "Snap and Fly" chopper logging is an act of eco vandalism. Heli logging targets the largest and most profitable trees. These grandiose specimens are vanishing as BC's primaeval forests are converted to plantations. Driven by the profit return on old growth timber, logging companies are reduced to going after the "guts and feathers" of logged over forests. Timber cruisers from logging companies identify the big trees on the ground and mark them with tape and spray paint. A faller is then flown into the forest area in a support helicopter. He climbs the tree, delimbs it, cuts off its top and attaches a choker cable to the stem. The faller then repells to the ground and chainsaws the mutilated tree until only a small core of heart wood holds it erect. Next a hovering heavy lift helicopter called a Skycrane arrives, grabs the choker cable on the bare tree pillar with a claw and snaps it off. The helicopter from Hell then transports the massive log to a collection terminal where it is dumped for yarding and further transport by truck (left).

"West Coast Heli Logging," 2008
YouTube

FROG member and filmmaker Richard Boyce took a reconaissance flight over Cathedral Canyon on 6 May 2006 to record the location of the site (right). Later he continued his investigation on the ground, where he discovered that the canyon's oldest tree inhabitants had been targeted.

Cathedral Canyon from the air, 6 May 2006
Photo: Richard Boyce

Ancient fir stump, Cathedral Canyon, 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Scott Tanner with marked tree, 3 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Scott Tanner was shocked by his discovery of the ancient "Grandmother" trees that were marked for helicopter logging on the steep slopes of Cathedral Canyon (right). Over many centuries these Douglas fir veterans have survived devastating fires thanks to their thick bark. The senseless ruination of the last precious pockets of primaeval forest habitat is a criminal act. Increasingly communities are calling for environmental justice and speaking out against the reprehensible forest industry corporations.

Qualicum Beach resident Scott Tanner (left) and other community members are fighting to protect 1,300 hectare ecosystem of Cathedral Grove, including Cathedral Canyon. This crutial watershed environmental protection will also provide longterm security for public drinking water as well as preserve endangered wildlife habitat.

Cathedral Canyon, 3 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Bark stripped cedar, 3 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

FROG and many other community activists have called for an immediate moratorium on the cutting of old growth forests and for new legislation to enure their longterm protection. High alpine areas where forests hold the snow pack and community watersheds are especially at risk.

In Cathedral Canyon culturally bark stripped cedar trees (left) are found as well as a rich variety of rare ancient forest lichen (below). These biological treasures are worthy of being included in a new expanded Cathedral Grove protection plan that adequately protects the entire watershed.

Lichen, Cathedral Canyon, 3 May 2006
Photo: Phil Carson

Trees targeted for cutting, Cathedral Canyon, 2007
Photo: Richard Boyce

Already the hydrology of Cameron River (right) has suffered huge disturbances due to decades of unregulated clearcut logging in the Cathedral Grove Watershed, leaving the giant trees in the park evermore vunerable to blowdown as a result of the hurricane force Pacific storms.

Annette Tanner stands besides two endangered big trees in Cathedral Canyon (left), on the floodplain of Cameron River just upstream from Cathedral Grove. Marked with pink tape and numbered by the logging corp, these magnificent and rare trees have been targeted to be heli logged by Island Timberlands (aka Brookfield, Brascan, Weyerhaeuser, MacMillan Bloedel).

Fallen ancient Douglas fir on Cameron River
Cathedral Grove, British Columbia

Aerial view of Cameron Lake, 2007
Cathedral Grove, British Columbia

Cameron Lake (left) was named in 1860 after the first judge of the new colony of Vancouver Island. The lake and Cameron River belong to the watershed that nurtures the world famous giant trees of Cathedral Grove. The watershed was part of a land grab by H. R. Macmillan to secure the lucrative Cameron Logging Division which for most of the 20th century provided huge amounts of old growth timber to the pulp, paper and lumber mills of Port Alberni. The survival of the small stand of big trees at the mouth of Cameron River was the result of a hard fought battle by conservationists. These trees are a nature treasure that provide up to a million people annually with a sense of wonder at the magnificence of the primaeval rainforest. Little do they know that just outside the borders of the tiny park the logging industry continues to slaughter rare surviving big trees.

About 400 hectares of land that remains to be protected of the Cathedral Grove Watershed lies in private forestlands to the west of the park – including Cathedral Canyon. Another 900 hectares are on public (Crown) lands to the east of the park on the north side of Cameron Lake, a non pristine logged over forest (right). This is the site of the abandoned E&N Railway, built in 1910 to serve the Port Alberni logging industry. The railtracks and three tier trestle were built using timber from ancient forests and are relics of a bygone era when the vast BC forests were believed inexhaustible.

Cameron Lake railtracks, 2007
Photo: Guy Monty

Cameron Lake rail trestle, 2007
Photo: Guy Monty

Heli Logging Hell The commercial "Snap and Fly" carnage of big trees by helicopter (single stem aerial logging) has become common in BC as the old growth coastal forests disappear and the unscrupulous and unregulated forest destruction companies become more ruthless in their maniacal pursuit of profit. Heli logging takes place on steep, unruly and unroaded terrain in remote areas as well as on the periphery of public parks. Even the previously intact Cathedral Canyon, which is an integral part of the world famous Grove, is being heli logged. This purposeful corporate extermination of the surviving big trees exposes the shameless greed of the forest industry.

Big Trees Destroyed On 3 November 2009 the Arrowsmith Parks and Land Use Council wrote to Island Timberlands and its parent corp Brookfield Infrastructure Partners in New York to complain over recent logging near Cathedral Grove: "Our hopes for some mutually beneficial outcome that preserves the Grove for future generations seem dashed by the recent actions of Island Timberlands. . . A total and immediate moratorium on logging in the small, virtually logged-out valley which encloses the most widely known and revered forest in Canada is not too much to ask."

Arrowsmith Parks and Land Use Council was founded in October 2008 when logging threatened Cathedral Grove. Its primary goal is the protection of the Cathedral Grove Watershed. Members intend to cast a caretaker’s eye over other protected areas as well. The Council is committed to engaging with community, government and industry to advocate for the conservation and expansion of parks and protected areas within the Mt Arrowsmith watersheds.

Protest against Island Timberlands, 2009
Photo: Karen Wonders

The Douglas fir forests of southern Vancouver Island are being logged at a faster rate than they were as recently as five years ago, according to a report on private-land logging by resource researcher Ben Parfitt.The report examines for the first time the harvesting rates on the swath of private forestland on the Island's eastern slopes from Sooke to Campbell River. It shows that 2007 logging rates are up more than 20 per cent over 2003, when much of the private land was in government-regulated tree-farm licences.The report, titled Restoring the Public Good on Private Forestlands, comes at a time when public interest in private forest lands is at an all-time high. On Vancouver Island, more than 600,000 hectares -- one-sixth of the Island -- is owned by three major forest companies, an anomaly in a province where 94 per cent of the land is publicly owned. But there's a sound reason the harvest levels have gone up, said Darshan Sihota, president of Island Timberlands, the province's second-largest landowner. He said Island Timberlands has stepped up harvesting deliberately to restore a more healthy age balance to the forest. The private lands were clearcut extensively 50 to 80 years ago and are now dominated by trees in that age class.

How Dare They Do This Brascan Corp. completed its $1.2-billion purchase of Weyerhaeuser Co.'s coastal forestry operations Monday, immediately splitting the assets into two new companies and transforming much of the coastal forest industry in one sudden move.Brascan managing partner Reid Carter said Monday that Weyerhaeuser's profitable private timberlands are now Island Timbers LP, a new low-profile company whose shareholders are Brascan and two pension funds.

Protest against Island Timberlands, 2009
Photo: Karen Wonders

Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere

The Arrowsmith Parks and Land-Use Council aims to see the end of logging in the area affecting Cathedral Grove. At a formal signing ceremony held Tuesday, February 10, in Parksville, over 25 community groups came together to put their signatures to a Parks Council letter to Brookfield Asset Management asking for a final settlement of the ongoing logging threat after years of clearcutting in the Cameron.

An honoured guest and endorser of the Parks Council action was Joe Foy, National Campaign Director for the Western Canadian Wilderness Committee. He believes the decades of mindless exploitation for profit which drove land use decisions in the past may be over. “Now we see community groups coming together to express their values about nature and place, especially such a place as Cathedral Grove – so widely known and loved. Success in your joint effort here will be a huge thing for Cathedral Grove, but, more than that, it will be a powerful example for other communities and other beloved places that need protection.” 

The Arrowsmith Parks and Land-Use Council aims to see the end of logging in the area affecting Cathedral Grove. At a formal signing ceremony held Tuesday, February 10, in Parksville, over 25 community groups came together to put their signatures to a Parks Council letter to Brookfield Asset Management asking for a final settlement of the ongoing logging threat after years of clearcutting in the Cameron. First Nations, provincial organizations, community groups, and environmental professionals addressed themselves to the Toronto-based, multi-national corporation which holds the Cameron River valley--including part of the Cathedral Grove ecosystem-- among its private resource lands through its Bermuda-based subsidiary, Island Timberlands Limited Partnership. Over and over, community groups from Nanaimo, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Port Alberni repeated the message, “business as usual is not an option anymore”. As recently as October, 2008, further cutting near MacMillan Park was threatened by Island Timberlands. Emphasizing the protection of forest ecosystems rather than an unsustainable clump of trees, Colin Frazer, from the Port Alberni chapter of the Council of Canadians, said “we want to preserve a real forest, not a theme park.”

Old growth fir tree, Cathedral Canyon, 2011
Photo: Richard Boyce

Ancient forest wetlands at the mouth of Cameron River, Cathedral Grove, 2008
Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

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