Camping with Bears & Bugs
Tomorrow is Parks Day. And this year is the 100th anniversary of parks in BC. What better day to contemplate our parks? How they came to be, how they are today, what they can be in the future.
For me, thinking about parks brings up fond memories, and the kind of stories that get told over and over. Growing up in this province I was fortunate to have opportunities to camp in, hike through, and explore so many of our parks. I still do. There was the day on the West Coast Trail when I was just 8 years old that I came face to face with a black bear. There was the hike in Tweedsmuir with so many bugs you could barely see through them, but yet such stark beauty that I’d love to go back. There was the evening we stayed too late at Lakelse Lake and got stuck in the ditch trying to drive around the closed gate. Manning Park, the Stein Valley, the Southern Chilcotin, Juan de Fuca, Naikoon, Garibaldi… these places form part of my memories, part of my mental map of this province.
- Caitlyn Vernon on Mt. Albert Edward. Photo: Susi Porter-Bopp
And I worry about our collective future, when I think about how most of what we have protected is rocks and ice, and thin strips along the ocean. When I think about how protecting these small areas has effectively given the green light to industrial resource extraction outside of the parks. The areas are too small and too far apart to actually conserve biodiversity, and many types of ecosystems remain unprotected. And we, the human animals, depend on the ecosystems throughout the province to support us, to provide jobs and clean water and food. We don’t just dip our toes in the river when we visit a park, we are connected to that river, and dependent upon it, at all times.
