EXPEDITION PHOTOSIn May, Friends' staff and volunteers explored Satchie and Hesquiat Lake Creeks – two remote wilderness valleys in northern Clayoquot Sound. The expedition was part of our ongoing campaign to protect these intact (pristine) valleys from imminent logging.
Our team visited the area as guests of the Hooksum Outdoor School, run by Steve and Karen Charleson of the Hesquiaht First Nation. With Steve as our guide, we boated from Hooksum to the north end of Hesquiat Lake, to the mouth of Satchie Creek and the mouth of neighbouring Hesquiat Lake Creek. From there, we explored the valleys on foot, bushwhacking along the creeks, taking photos and video footage.
To be in wild valleys, where life has unfolded for thousands of years, free from the destruction of industrial disturbance, is to be filled with a sense of wonder. In Satchie, the creek's water flows amber gold and the banks are padded with emerald moss and yellow violets. Waterfalls punctuate the creek and ancient towering trees stand in the temperate rainforest – hemlock, red cedar, Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, amabilis fir.
Adjacent Hesquiat Lake Creek is equally spectacular. Just above its mouth are two waterfalls, one above the other, and then two small lakes. Along the shore of one of the lakes stands a grove of magnificent cedars with massive trunks. Evidence of Hesquiaht First Nation's traditional use of cedar trees is visible in this grove and elsewhere in Hesquiat Lake Creek – bark-strip scars on trunks of living trees, and occasional stumps of cedars felled for dug-out canoes and house planks.
Wolves, cougars, bears and other wildlife roam Satchie and Hesquiat Lake valleys as they have for millennia, but the animals are elusive. We noticed only a few signs of their presence – a deer hoofprint, a bear trail, bear claw-marks on trees.
Being in these intact valleys was a memorable and life-affirming experience.
But industry has no reverence for the wild and refuses to recognize that intact temperate rainforest valleys are globally rare, ecologically precious and need to be protected from industrial degradation.
Satchie and Hesquiat Lake Creeks are both in Interfor's approved logging plan. In February 2005, Friends of Clayoquot Sound mobilized media attention, public outcry and market pressure, and stopped Interfor's logging road just as it crossed over the ridge-top onto the upper slopes of Hesquiat Lake Creek. The road, and the logging blocks it was heading for, remain undone.
In Satchie, we found red flagging tape and a helicopter landing platform on the site of a proposed logging block. A logging road and clearcut, done in 2004, already sit perched at the ridge-top of Satchie. The road is poised to descend into the valley – 22 kilometres of road and 6 logging blocks are planned throughout Satchie.
We say, "No way!” We know you will agree these two intact valleys should not be turned into pulp and boards.
Friends of Clayoquot Sound
PO Box 489, 331 Neill St., Tofino BC V0R 2Z0
Tel: 250-725-4218 Fax: 250-725-2527
Email: info@focs.ca
Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
Corporate watch
Report: Overview of Logging in Clayoquot Sound 2000-2009 (download page)
Maps
Backgrounders
Historical overview
Photo by Adrian Dorst
The health of the global environment depends on intact ecosystems. It is our responsibility to act as peaceful
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