Darkwoods, British Columbia

Saving the Darkwoods   (Page 4 of 4)

The biggest private conservation land deal in Canadian history reveals a story of German royalty, rugged wilderness, pioneering forestry and a shroud of privacy

Roland Meyer, a forester who worked in Darkwoods for 37 years, has a soft spot for the property and visits it most weekends with his wife. (Photo: Bruce Kirkby)

As Schadendorf points out, this situation is reversed throughout much of the province, where a seemingly unlimited supply of trees has placed the emphasis on taking. Crown land works on a tenure system, giving operators an incentive to take all they can, when they can, because they don’t know whether they’ll have the same opportunity down the road. Pluto Darkwoods, on the other hand, began experimenting with selective logging in the 1960s and replanting in the 1970s. “Nobody replanted back then,” says Schadendorf, “and we had folks calling us stupid for trying.” It was impossible to obtain seedlings at the time, so Darkwoods grew its own from seeds the foresters collected by hand.

“Our annual timber harvest was roughly 30 percent less than what any other owner would have considered the long-term sustainable rate,” says Schadendorf. “Nobody denies that clear-cuts are ugly, but our human visual aesthetic sensibilities give us no reliable indication whatsoever of the state of biodiversity or the health of the land and forest. There can be a big difference between good forestry and good-looking forestry.”

Despite Schadendorf ’s pride, I repeatedly hear that the property was “creamed” and is only being sold because nothing of value remains. To gauge that accusation, I contact Roland Meyer, a forester who worked on Darkwoods for 37 years. Although now retired, Meyer can’t let go and visits the property most weekends with his wife. NCC has given him a lifetime “ambassador” pass.

We meet at the Duke’s cabin, where Quinn and I stayed in early spring. Enthusiastic and appearing 20 years younger than a retiree, Meyer is wearing a German hunting jacket and a jagdhut, a traditional hunting hat in the Alps. Wandering through lush meadows, we crouch to admire beargrass, elephant head lousewort and cotton grass. Meyer spots a mess of beer bottles sinking into the soft ground and wordlessly collects them. Next we set off toward picturesque Devils Hole Lake, high in the alpine heart of the property. En route, Meyer points to an overgrown skid trail. “There is a stand of old cedar somewhere up that hillside,” he says. I suggest we go exploring, and Meyer instantly agrees, veering off the road and parking amid thick alders.

Pushing our way through a jungle of lush devil’s club, we eventually find the stand. Each tree we stumble upon appears bigger than the last. Scrambling over deadfall, Meyer wraps his arms around one trunk after another and stares upward. “I’m so glad you dragged me back up here,” he says.

We bushwhack out and drive on to the lake. The sun is dropping when we return to the truck. Meyer stares down the valley, toward a distant green mountainside mauled with clear-cuts. A dirt road zigzags up the steep face. “This used to be one of the most gorgeous views on the property,” whispers Meyer, “until I wrecked it. There was nothing I could do. The beetle took over, and the entire hillside was gone in one summer.”

Meyer reminds me of a farmer who has been forced to put down a beloved horse. And that analogy — how a farmer cares for his livestock and land — perhaps best sums up Pluto Darkwoods’ long-standing relationship with the property. There is no denying a deep and abiding care.

During autumn visits to Darkwoods, the Duke was appalled by the occasional appearance of “slob hunters” — people driving around in pickups with guns and beer, blasting away at any animals they came across. Despite being an avid hunter, the Duke banned all hunting on the property.

Five years ago, biologist Michael Proctor began a DNA survey of southern Selkirk grizzly bears, a threatened population he has been studying since 1999. Not only did he find more bears on Darkwoods than expected, but his research also indicates that bears in the region have not interbred with adjacent populations for several generations, perhaps 40 to 60 years. “This is one of the most fragmented and isolated grizzly populations in the province,” says Proctor, which is an enormous conservation concern.

Small, isolated wildlife populations have a hard time surviving in the long run. Bears, with a very low reproductive rate, are particularly vulnerable. Disease, human interactions and other factors can push populations to the point where they cannot recover.

At Darkwoods, Proctor’s preliminary radio telemetry has garnered interesting results, suggesting that bears do not avoid roads like their cousins on adjacent crown land. He believes this is a result of limited traffic and the hunting ban. “My work is not done yet, but it appears as though Pluto Darkwoods’ management has been good for bears,” he says, because the property “has basically acted as an informal wildlife refugium.”

Proctor would like to maintain the motorized hunting ban, to gain a deeper understanding of how bears use habitat and to allow the population to recover further. But his most insightful words are saved for the bigger picture.

“What Darkwoods offers,” he says, “is some much-needed variation in land-management tenure.” In British Columbia, the government owns or manages 94 percent of the land and blanket rules generally apply. “It is incredibly valuable to try different approaches,” says Proctor. “This allows us to learn what works and what doesn’t, to progress our thinking and, ultimately, to improve land-management styles. What we have with Darkwoods is a grand and rare experiment, designed purely by chance. The opportunity exists only because of the land’s unique history.”

It is a sleeting September day when I meet Pat Field in Salmo for a final visit to Darkwoods. Sheets of mist pour down the valley. Roadside poplars are already dropping yellow leaves, and on the high peaks, the first snows have arrived.

We head up Hidden Creek to view some of NCC’s recent efforts at deactivating roads, a complicated process that includes improving drainage ditches and removing dirtcovered bridges. Driving deeper and deeper into the property along narrow, long-abandoned roads, I am once again staggered by the scale of it all. This one valley, which I have not previously visited, is a striking wilderness on its own.

Proctor had told me about the “ripple of pleasant feelings that surged through the biologist community” when NCC’s purchase was announced. Something exceptional is happening in these hidden valleys; over the span of my visits, the word I keep returning to is “hope.” Environmentalists periodically criticize conservation land trusts because they try to be all things to all people. This arises from the simple need to secure funding, which means they shy away from advocacy (what might please an NGO could raise hackles at a rod-and-gun club, and both contribute). But, despite this shortcoming, to comprehend the scale of Darkwoods and then realize that Canadian citizens have essentially pooled their resources to set this land aside for ecological stewardship is powerfully uplifting.

As we bounce along, Field outlines NCC’s draft propertymanagement plan, which has gone up the organization’s lengthy chain of command for approval and will be released at a series of town hall-style meetings later in the week. If everything goes according to schedule after a period of public comment, implementation will start in January 2011. Packed with tables, flow charts, conceptual models and adaptive planning cycles, the 54-page report sets out six primary conservation targets: mountain caribou; hydro-riparian ecosystems; dry interior cedar-hemlock forest; grizzly bears; old-growth cedar-hemlock forest; and rare ecosystems and features. It identifies threats, such as fire, forest harvesting and recreational development, then outlines mitigation strategies.

“We will close 20 percent of the property completely,” says Field, “specifically areas with multiple conservation targets where tree harvest has been completed.” The annual timber cut will be reduced from 55,000 to 10,000 cubic metres, with proceeds helping finance day-to-day operations. Sent to local mills, this wood, in part, represents NCC’s commitment not to adversely affect local economies. Nonmotorized hunting is being considered in a small portion of the Topaz Creek area, but the vast majority of the property will remain off limits, though NCC will loosen restrictions on such non-motorized recreation as hiking and biking.

A new gating system has been installed to manage access, but Field offers some perspective. “If threats to the property were measured on a five-foot ruler, NCC alleviated four feet of threat simply by purchasing Darkwoods. Of the remaining foot, nine inches hinge on cleaning up the existing road network and three inches are related to public access.”

Field slows and points to shoulder-high saplings in the cutblock beside us. Their thin trunks weave and twist like pipe cleaners, the result of heavy winter snow press. “There were times when Roland Meyer would drive all the way up and shake the snow off each one by hand,” he says. “Only care and attention brought them back to life.”

We have reached the end of the road. Beyond, grey cliffs soar upward, and far above, a dusting of snow mixes with the swirling clouds. In a few weeks, the first winter storms will hit, closing the high passes, and Darkwoods will once again retreat from the modern world.

Bruce Kirkby is the author of Sand Dance: By Camel Across Arabia’s Great Southern Desert and The Dolphin’s Tooth: A Decade in Search of Adventure. He lives in Kimberley, B.C.