[Text: Tomas Borsa. Photos: Jean-Philippe Marquis.]
500 kilometres inland from the Pacific coast and just 115 kilometres from the smog of Prince George lies the world’s largest temperate inland rainforest. It’s an anomaly of a place, dominated by old-growth hemlocks and red-cedars, and covered in a dense layer of moss – quite apart from the diminutive, re-planted pine and spruce that encircle the area, and which support it’s massive forestry industry. We’ve been brought to the area (colloquially known as the Ancient Forest) by Dave King and Nowell Senior, two avid backcountry hikers. Swinging his weathered bush axe, Dave leads us up a trail through devil’s club, alder stands, and the occasional patch of early-season snow. After several hours of hiking, the cedars and hemlocks abruptly give way to alpine fir. Dave remarks that in the past two decades, he’s seen the tree line recede by around 150 metres, and muses that this is likely a result of climate change; as a retired wildlife biologist, this is probably more than mere speculation. Just before noon, and around three hours after setting off from the base, we arrive at the peak of Driscoll Ridge, which provides a fantastic view of the sprawling valley below. In the distance are the white-capped peaks of Bald Mountain and Red Mountain.
Dave points out the town of Penny, population one: a reminder of a bygone era of prosperity doomed by the first wave of mill closures in the 1980s. To our left, we are also able to see the Parsnip River, over which the Northern Gateway is slated to cross, as well as the Hominka, Missinchinka, Table, and Missinka – each of which continue to provide a source of food for significant populations of people (quite unlike Penny). Despite safeguards, the inaccessibility of sections of the pipeline over these areas concerns Dave, who brings up the example of Chetwynd, which in 2000 experienced firsthand the effects of an oil spill into it’s municipal water supply. Dave tells us that, “There is certainly some unstable ground and soils that need to be contended with. [Enbridge] say they can contend with those, but I can see how there could be issues with it. For me, it remains a concern”. After a long descent filled with stumbles and near-misses, we stop for a break at a glacier-fed stream before continuing down the trail. Late in the afternoon, we emerge from the canopy and carry on to the (comparatively underwhelming) lower trail. As Dave chats with a pair of hikers, Jean-Philippe and I rifle through the guestbook – all told, there are 60 countries represented in it’s pages. Clearly, we aren’t the only ones who see the value of conserving this remarkable landscape.
