Leslie dans la forêt morte, 1984

This morning I completed an online questionnaire purportedly designed by the present NDP-Green alliance government to gather citizen input on the future of “forest management” in British Columbia. Historically, such “management “ has had little to do with forests and everything to do with turning them into cash. Everything else has taken a back seat, including water resources, fish and other wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration, and even the communities that relied (past tense intended) on forest resources for their economy — the typical BC boom and bust economy.

For decades, as recorded in studies such as Deforestation and “Development” in Canada and the Tropics (University of Cape Breton, 1989) and Will Koop’s From Wisdom to Tyranny (B.C. Tapwater Alliance, 2006) consultation, study and “agreements” have long served as a cover for stalling, and maintaining the status quo in BC’s temperate rainforests. 

I was going to write that we stand at a crossroads, but I believe that intersection was passed long ago, perhaps even before warnings were compiled in the aforementioned books. Will the present government’s survey be any different to a hundred other ignored “studies” used to claim consultation? I think you can sense my cynicism. Nonetheless, I encourage readers to contribute their opinions.

Hollyburn Rope Tow, 1966

What we now call Cypress Bowl and the mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore lie within the territory of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples.

Hollyburn Mountain introduced me in 1966 to downhill skiing and the rugged mountains of BC, an experience that eventually led to a period of my life dedicated wholly to mountaineering. 

In the 1960s, under the Social Credit government, there was still active, and controversial, logging within the nascent provincial park.  I remember vividly access to the mountain in those days entailed bumping up a steep road in a logging crummy (track vehicle). What an adventure for a 14-year-old, newly-arrived from the tamed landscape of Wednesfield, England!

I’d refinished some second-hand wooden skis and learned how to grab a rope tow (one arm behind your back). Years later, I would teach cross-country skiing at Cypress Bowl. Adjacent Mt. Strachen was a favourite day trip from Vancouver to access steep, “out of bounds” runs — telemark slalom skiing back down through the remaining stand of old growth cypress.

The area was designated as a Class A provincial park in 1974, during the short tenure of Dave Barrett´s NDP government.

That wasn’t the end of clearcut logging in the area, however, which went on under the guise of ski area development for some time, up to preparations for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. 

Hollyburn Lodge, 1985

At one point, developers drew up plans for a restaurant on the summit of Mt. Strachan and more logging of remaining old growth forest.

Cypress’s assets have for some years now been passed around various American investors and hedge funds, the latest, Michigan’s Boyne Resorts, which  has operated Cypress’ business for years under a sublease agreement, scooped up the mountain in 2018.

In 1979, when I lived at 1st & Vine in Kitsilano, an elderly acquaintance in the Vancouver mountaineering community, knowing of my experience in log building, offered to turn over to me the 99-year lease on one of the old cabins on Hollyburn adjacent to the old lodge, with the only proviso that I restore the aging structure. Unfortunately, I was just heading out on a BCIT/PEP avalanche course and neglected to return his call. When I returned, I’d missed my chance at essentially owning a piece of Hollyburn history.

As I recall, I made the photo above as a response to clearcut logging in the area. Leslie was a fellow mountain adventurer who had previously modelled for fashion ads I did for a Broadway clothing company. I hope the image (from a 12-exposure roll of medium-format film) speaks for itself. 

The broken landscape, piled high with machine-ravaged limbs and giant, decapitated trunks, contrasted with Leslie’s youth and beauty. Though my journal records that I “didn’t feel that tuned in,” distracted by “hoards of biting insects,” I recall wrapping Leslie in the white shroud, asking her to close her eyes against the hard light of the open sky. Gazing downward onto the Mamiyaflex camera’s focussing screen, I felt a mixture of love and sadness. Beyond the silvered skeletons, the clearcut stretched up and over the shoulder of Black Mountain.

Nearby, in an area that had escaped the industrial carnage, birds sang in a cool green oasis.

My journal (June 26, 1984) also records an anxious epilogue to the shoot. 

“… I discovered back in town that I had left Brian [Hay’s]  $350.00 spot meter sitting on a tree stump, back on the mountain. I had to buy more gas and drive back in the failing evening light …. I was in tears by the time I finally located it.”

Hollyburn History