Go ahead and bust out the party hats and balloons, there’s an anniversary to celebrate.
No, it’s not Aunt Ethel’s 90th, though that is always a good occasion to dip into the devil’s water.
It’s the 100th anniversary of Vancouver Island’s Strathcona Park, the first provincial park officially designated in B.C. and, in my humble opinion, one of the most beautiful, inspiring and accessible places on the planet.
In 1910, after a 300-kilometre journey from Campbell River to Port Alberni by a group of adventurers, word got back to the B.C. legislature through group leader Price Ellison that the heart of Vancouver Island was a pretty stunning place and it should be protected.
He had a strong argument, so it was. On March 11, 1911, Strathcona Park was born, and so was a love affair between people of Vancouver Island who appreciate natural splendour and a piece of land only too eager to show off.
That love affair between the people and the land has grown over the last 100 hundred years and B.C. now boasts hundreds of parks that not only protect our forests, wildlife, mountains, lakes and rivers, but provide exceptional recreational opportunities.
The park is named for Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona, who is famous for driving in the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
During the original expedition, on July 29, 1910, nine of the adventurers made the first ascent of Crown Mountain, which sits majestically 1,846 metres above the Strait of Georgia, to serve as a highlight of their journey.
From the summit of Crown, Ellison and his troupe gasped in delight at the other rugged peaks that surrounded them: The 2,200-metre Golden Hinde, the Island’s highest point, to the south; Tyee Mountain to the northwest; and Mount Filberg, Mount Cobb and Kings Peak all glistened in the summer sun. There were also lakes like Green Lake, named for its emerald waters that are host to icebergs broken off from a glacier that creeps right to the lake’s edge.
To commemorate that journey, last summer a group led by Island adventurer and author/photographer Philip Stone set out to honour the park’s founders by tracing their steps through the heart of Strathcona. They packed their supplies, loaded up their canoes and departed from Campbell River with the goal of reaching the summit of Crown Mountain on July 29, 2010, exactly 100 years to the day of Ellison’s ascent.
Along the way they took photographs mirroring the poses of their fore-trekkers. They even stumbled across Ellison’s original camp near Crown, complete with sun-bleached logs and rusty herring cans.
To complete the historic link, Ellison’s great-grandson Murray Sovereign made the journey, posing for a picture on the same rock 100 years to the day where his great-grandfather posed.
If the beauty of Strathcona doesn’t steal your heart, stories like that will, which is why provincial parks are so important. They link the past to present and remind us of why we live here.
For me, I’m in the early stages of a love affair with Strathcona.
Lately, my wife and I have taken up backcountry skiing and are just beginning to explore what Strathcona has to offer. With some friends last April, we skied up Mount Beecher on a stunningly clear day, allowing us a vista that saw the strait gleaming in the east and peak after peak to the north and west that looked almost close enough to touch.
It was a tease and we intend to explore much more of Strathcona in the future. It’s a gem right in our own backyard.
This year, B.C. Parks is planning celebrations throughout the province to mark a century of provincial parks. So grab a canoe, or snowshoes, or skis, or just your hiking boots and be ready to be inspired.
reporter2@nanaimobulletin.com
