The Landblogger

Mackenzie Trail - Land Use

Vanderhoof LRMP Meetings, Friday, November 25 & Saturday, November 26, 2005

A quote I found in Michael Crichton's recent book, State of Fear, sums it up nicely:

Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss.
—George Orwell

In the pursuit of formulating a Land and Resource Management Plan, there appear to be many voices, each with their own agenda, and their own set of fears and sensitivities.

Kudos to the staff of the various ministries involved, and especially to Romona Blackwell & Traci Leys-Schirok, for taking on this virtually insurmountable task.

Our area of interest, to put it in perspective, is the Alexander Mackenzie/Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail corridor, which runs through not only the Vanderhoof Land Management District, but also through the Quesnel and Chilcotin LMDs. Thus, we are only a minor interest in the district, perhaps 1/16th of the overall picture for the Vanderhoof project.

The primary item that came out of this meeting was that there is a joint-district committee being established with stakeholders to discuss future use of this corridor, and that will be held in a separate set of meetings.

The balance of the two day meeting was not a waste, as it did reveal to me much of how the various interests interact with each other. It appears each group has its own set of rights, limitations and some sort of a trump card to be played in the event the group does not get its way.

The two groups are divided reasonably evenly between government based, and public based.

Romona displayed an excellent example showing a single Hectare of land, and all the different levels of demand on it, using a MasterCard style "Priceless" comparison. In the example, the resources under the surface, mining, oil, gas, were valued very high; surface resources such as forest similarly valued; various licenses and tenures for guide outfitting, ranching, grow ops [:-)] fishing camps, recreational activities, each had their own value, and as a final point, "Getting out in the back country where it's quiet and I can relax" or something to that effect, was PRICELESS.

I had never thought of a single piece of land with so many interests in it. Even land that is privately owned is still subject to a number of the factors above. We then had the Ministry of Environment, wildlife branch, present an overview of how they manage the wildlife in the area. What came out of this, at least for me, is a quick synopsis of some of the interest groups, their desires, and their capability to effect change or maintenance of current conditions. Keep in mind that this is my bias coming through, and each of these groups would also have their own point of view as well.

I've probably named all the ministries wrong, but their names seem to be changing on a regular basis anyway, so you'll get the idea.

Ministry of Environment, Wildlife. To oversimplify, this ministry manages wild animals and hunting licenses. In terms of land use, this ministry has the right to assign hunting rights anywhere within the boundaries, except for in designated urban, provincial/federal parks and on private land. It is not bound by designated "backcountry" or protected areas of a land management plan. It does, however consider these plans and build policy and license rules accordingly. One thing to note, is that this branch is not in the Road restriction business. It has recognized that other government ministries can trump them on road usage, so it has found the better area of regulation for the wildlife branch is to regulate hunting season lengths, and quotas. There is a concern about "loop roads" into and out of the back country, since it makes it harder for conservation officers to enforce when a hunter can get out of the back country by several routes.

Ministry of Natural Resources, Oil, Gas. This ministry works mostly with resources under the surface. Since these resources often have the highest value in terms of land use, they most often end up taking the highest priority for usage, and trump nearly every other user type in terms of opening up roads and access points. they weren't represented at the meeting, but this appeared to be the overall feeling, that if Oil and Gas wanted roads, they'd get roads.

Ministry of Forest and Range. This ministry also has a very high level of trumping other interests due to the value of tree harvesting to the province. There appears to be more of an interest in the Ministry of Forests being the secondary user, not building new access points, but piggybacking on access points created by Oil and Gas, where possible. However, this winter vast amounts of Beetle Kill harvesting is being done in the area, thus a huge temporary road network has to be built to accommodate the removal of the trees. There appears to be a general trend, however for the ministires listed above to consult each other for road planning rather than to build parallel roads to the same place.

Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts. This is the new kid on the block. the primary interest for us here is that this Ministry has now taken on management of all Forestry recreation sites in BC. No doubt we will be having discussions with them regarding Whipsaw. There was not a great deal of input from the representative of this ministry at the meeting, as I think they are still trying to get a handle on current assets/responsibilities before looking a t new ventures.

Guide Outfitters, association and individuals. Both the association as well as a number of individual guide outfitters were represented. These folks have an interest in keeping as much land as possible within the region absolutely as primitive and inaccessible as possible. This enables them to bring their hunting customers into pristine, roadless wilderness and sell the experience of not seeing another human being, or motorized vehicle for days. As you can imagine, this is getting harder and harder for them to do, as forestry and resource roads open up, which then opens the roads to recreational users. Guide Outfitters are generally opposed to motorized access, since it forces change to the movement of wildlife within their areas. While the guide outfitters often have licensed rights to large areas of the land, it needs to be remembered that they do not own or lease the crown land, rather share the right of use with other parties.

Wilderness Lodges. Some overlap exists here with Guide Outfitters, but the primary difference is that the lodges usually have the use/tenure license of a much smaller tract of land and either ownership or long term lease of the land their encampment is based on. These lodges sell the wilderness experience same as the guide outfitters, but usually base it on fishing or other adventure tourism activities.

Trappers. Trap line licenses exist, often overlapping the same land that the outfitters and lodges use. These are usually fairly remote and often include several cabins along the trap line. For the obvious reason of maintaining a good supply of wildlife to trap, the trappers are generally opposed to introduction of access to their areas. The other reason is the safety and liability issue of humans coming in contact with traps. Quite simply, they usually don't want additional human traffic into their areas.

Ranchers. These appear to be concerned mainly with grasslands and areas of cattle grazing. Encroachment of humans and vehicles into the large meadows, many which are barely reclaimed from swamp (and many going back to being swamp due to high water tables) is a concern for these folks. Several of the ranchers also make part of their living from guiding, and running lodges, so this packs an additional punch in their opposition to land access within their regions. However, many ranchers need to keep the basic corridors open in order to get supplies, deliver their goods to market, visit neighbors, etc., and in doing so, open the corridors for public use.

First Nations. This group has reserves in many areas, and as it applies to us, a couple of reserves right on the Mackenzie Trail corridor. This group would like to see access closed as it see public access as an infringement of their lands, however, the access corridors reach much further than the borders of Native reserves, and they have little control outside of their reserve borders. this group uses the primitive roads and trails regularly to haul diesel fuel into the reserves. This activity, while essential to the reserve life, is extremely hard on the primitive roads and results in a high degree of road erosion.

Recreational Users. Quads, snowmobiles, hikers, bikers, horse riders, and 4x4 all fall into this group. Most users in this group simply see crown land as their birthright - the access to it, and recreating on it is their right as Canadians. There definitely needs to be some rules of access (motorized) in a number of these areas, however, the prevailing thought is to make access the same for all, not available for some and available to others. Examples of trails open to Quads, but closed to 4x4s were mentioned. This promises to be the most contentious area of the process.

Mackenzie Trail Use — my thoughts. As a conclusion, I have a little more perspective now on the issue of Mackenzie Trail access for motorized vehicles. The fact that we've been able to make two trips through the corridor of this heritage trail, and the NCOAS has been able to do similar has put is on the list of stakeholders, which is not a bad thing.
In the previous Land Management Plan (1997), motorized access to the trail corridor was a point of conflict between the Guides, Ranchers, First Nations on one side of the issue, and the Federation of Wildlife on the other side of issue, wanting to maintain motorized access. The truth of the situation was that the Guides, Ranchers and First Nations did have and do use motorized access for their own purposes. There were supposed to be permits issued for these people to access, and others, such as individuals or groups like ours, could not get a permit. However, it is not clear if permits were ever put into place, what government body looked after issuing the permits, or who would enforce the permits. As a result, it is my opinion that our limited use of the corridor over the past 4 years has been somewhat under the radar. So long as we didn't say to much about it, they wouldn't either. I am told there are several in the no-access camp that are quite happy to see groups like ours, doing trail maintenance and treading as lightly as possible, but others have also warned that we are not wanted and could be chased off with bullets flying if we're not careful. That seems to me a good reason for being involved with the Mackenzie Trail access committee in the future.
I feel that the corridor should remain open to motorized vehicles, but would suggest that portions of it be closed during most of the year, opening only during the dry season. Due to beetle kill, the pine forests are not drawing water out of the land and low lying areas are wetter than usual. Thus closure of low lying areas for the next few years could also be considered, but not if it is a mechanism to get final access to the trail closed. I am in complete disagreement with Quads driving on the heritage trail where it leaves the main wagon trail, and also of any new trails being blazed, since this is a heritage site. But without groups like ours keeping the trail open and maintaining it, there will be no trail left for our children or grandchildren. Some might want to keep it open only to walkers or horseback riders, however, my firsthand experience is that there are very few recreational walkers or riders using the trail right now. In two traverses of the entire length of the trail I have seen one walker, a gentleman from Germany walking on his own, and three horses this year, some local women from Vanderhoof riding part of the trail. This, to me does not constitute enough usage at peak season to allow any maintenance of the trail or make it worthwhile to keep it open as a heritage site.
Next phase, I hope we as a club can be represented in future trail discussions and perhaps we can take an active part in trail maintenance, while balancing the needs and interests of the other groups with our own.

Dave Blair
President, RoverLanders of BC

Mackenzie Trail 2005 - Part 7

Day 7 - The Shortest Day
The primary activity the next morning, beyond breaking camp, was pouring the last of our fuel into the Series IIa. All the gas powered trucks were down to reserves. So far I had used up 30 gallons for about 350 KM and I had one 5 gallon jerry can left. We set out about 10:30 after waving at a float plane who was dropping off adventure fisherman to this remote, supposedly roadless lake. If anyone actually saw the road, they would still say it was roadless, as its little more than a couple of rough ruts. South of the lake by about 10 KM the rutted trail joined a larger and firmer path and about 20 KM later joined the Dean River Main Road and the Beef Trail Road. This winds down to Highway 20, just west of Anahim Lake, bordering Tweedsmuir Park. We actually got to shift into high range somewhere on this road. When we stopped at Highway 20 we were surprised at the heavy layer of dust that had accumulated on all of us. Oliver looked like an eskimo dog, and it took days to get rid of dust blowing out of everything.
At Anahim Lake, everyone filled up with fuel and civilized goods like native trinkets, Indian sweaters and of course beer for the cooler. About half of the group chose to head back towards Williams Lake and points south, while the other half opted to head westward to Bella Coola, eventually visiting several museums and memorials to Alexander Mackenzie and then boarding the ferry to Port Hardy and home.

Since this trip, in August of 2005, there has been an effort to promote and maintain trail access to this area by the 4WDABC, NCOAS and RoverLanders clubs. At time of this writing it appears that the corridor of this trail has retained its current limited road access, however, there is another sub-committee forming that will do further evaluation of the impact of tourism of all types on this trail. I look forward to attending those sessions in hopes of maintaining future access for motorized recreation.

Mackenzie Trail 2005 - Part 6

Day 6 - The Longest Day
Another bright morning, albeit somewhat white due to a heavy frost and a bit of fog around the fringes. It didn't take long for the sun to clear the frost away. The surrounding several hundred acres of hay fields cleared of fog quickly as well, revealing one of the few wildlife spottings of the trip. A bull moose was lurking at the edge of one of the fields, about 400 yards away. Over the course of the trip we were constantly amazed to see the lack of wild animals. It's hard to say for sure whether it was the time of year or the dead pines or what, but compared to the earlier trip we took, there was a distinct lack of wildlife along the route.
Our goal today was to get as far as we could westward, with no exact destination in mind. The previous trip, it had taken us 2 days to get in to this point, so we anticipated another 2 days to get out to Gatcho Lake, the unofficial end of the trail as at this point the trail proceeds into Tweedsmuir Park and is inaccessible to vehicles. From Gatcho, our recollection is a southward run of about 70 KM down to Anahim Lake and the (gravel) highway.
We had a rather leisurely breakfast and decided we'd also make a "real" lunch stop around 1 PM or whenever we found a suitable spot. No rush for today. As we proceeded away from the civilization provided by the ranchlands, we came across a few horses, which may have been wild at some point, but were now stabled in an old barn — obviously one of the local ranchers was trying to put them to use. We then came across a trappers cabin, same one we had inspected in our previous trip, and had to stop and check out. It was eerie as nothing had changed in the past 3 years. The door was still open, the breakfast table looked like they had just eaten and not wiped up yet, in fact it looked like they had just gone out to the barn and would be back anytime. Just a bit thicker of dust layer, and a couple of notes from various visitors, but this abandoned place was pretty weird. Following that, the trees started thickening up and we continued along the wagon trail westward. We passed several lakes and the spot at the east end of Eliguk lake which we had camped in the previous trip, last time with a huge rainstorm soaking down all the gear. We thought we were making pretty good progress, as we were barely at noon and yet had done close to a full day's travel compared to the previous trip. All the regular hurdles of continuous mud, side slopes, rocky road and bugs we took in stride. We're getting pretty used to the routine now.
Then things changed. There is a spot where the wagon trail comes down one side of a small gully, then turns sharply northward and over a hillock, about 100 feet high, then down the other side and through a side slope of about 200 feet, followed by a rather deep and twisty — but short — mud hole. This brought us to a stop as every truck had to winch up the first slope, and carefully maneuver along the side slope, thus resulting in not having any momentum for the muck. Stuart's 109, like all the others, winched up the first challenge, but due to several trucks going before and making the side slope a bit slick, he slipped off the edge and into a 2 foot deep muddy marsh. Still on the side slope, and in danger of rolling over on the drivers side, Bill and Bernie rushed over planted themselves on the right front wing and remained there to counterbalance the angle while Mark, Phil and I hooked up winches and did a rather long drag to dislodge Stuart from the muck. It gave us memories of the previous trip as both Mark and Kris got stuck in exactly the same spot going the other direction. It's just a bit deeper now...
Of course, due to my 4wd not operating, I drove as far as I could, then was winched the balance of the way.
So much for a nice lunch break. We were covered with mud now, and it was about 3 PM. The forest now thickened to a point where there really was no place to pull off, anyway. We simply had to push on through in hopes of finding a clearing and a place to pitch camp for the night. Shortly after — which interprets to mean several kilometers of mud, rocks and side slopes — we came to the east end of the huge meadows. Last trip we had crossed these meadows along a trail which ran along the southern edge through about 8 KM of continuous smooth meadow. Now Mark, on the first 100 feet of this same trail, broke through and got stuck axle deep in muck. Bernie followed suit, then we all stopped and noticed that even standing on the ground in our boots we were sinking through the sod and developing a sticky growing mud base on our boots. OK, time to extract and find another route. All truck moved back, and Phil, Kris and Bill used their rigs to tug out Bernie and Mark. Its now 6 PM, and we can't camp here because the ground is so wet and there is no place to set up tents.
While the rigs were being extracted, several (bored) women decided to take a walk so they and the dogs went off exploring. In doing so, they stumbled across another higher road in the bushes to the north side of where we were by about 100 yards, and a very overgrown trail joining the two. Some GPSing revealed that this was the George Krestinuk wagon trail, pushed through in the 1920's, but it hadn't been used for years, obvious because of the overgrowth and fallen trees. However, according to the maps we had, this trail proceeded a few kilometers northwest, then turned southward to our eventual destination, Gatcho Lake. So we had our new route, and we'll just find a camping spot along the way. It's obvious we had to avoid the meadows road as the water table is now so high that it is almost swamp again, not the drained meadow it once was.
With Mark in front on trail-breaking duty, chainsaw at ready and used constantly, we started down the Krestinuk wagon trail. The going was slow as the trees became thicker and thicker. It was almost as if you couldn't see off to the left and right because the trees were so thick. Many places the trees were dead, but during the course of their life had grown from sapling when the trail was originally blazed, to thicknesses of 1-2 feet. The trail was narrow enough when it was first pushed through for wagons, but the growth of the trees had narrowed it even further. Every one of us was side scraping unavoidably over and over again as we progressed. Not only did eveyone's mirrors get folded in, but most of us lost a lense or two as the folded mirrors got crushed againts the body. I also pushed in both fresh air vents on my lower doors as we squeezed through the old dead trees. This went on for about 3 hours, at a speed of about 1 km per hour. Adding to this was every few hundred feet the trail would dip down into a soft spot as it went close to the meadows and we would have to extract ourselves from the mud. It was getting dark now, around 9 PM, no place to camp, no place to turn around, we hadn't had our restful lunch and we were all tired and getting a bit cranky. Accourding to the GPS, we were about 3 km from Gatcho Lake. We decided to push through as we recalled there was a reasonable camping area there.
But, what was a tough grunt of a day got worse. At one point the wagon trail crosses very close to the meadow for about 300 yards and it was nothing but a mud bog. Mark had got himself in, and with high beams could see the other edge, about 100 yards away. We knew if Mark was stuck, we'd all be stuck behind him, so it was time to formulate a plan. It's dark, raining now, the only way to get from one vehicle to another is walking through 18" deep ruts filled with water, or slip-sliding on the broken up middle hump. We're tired from continuous winching, and did I mention hungry? Most of us had resolved to opening our coolers and eating along the way — obviously we weren't gonna get lunch now. That was one of the few comic reliefs we had that night.
It was concluded that the best course of action was to link all our trucks together via our winch cables, and winch one forward while the others freewheeled out their line. That way, we only had to march through the hundred feet or so of muck one time each rather than every move forward. Mark at the front was using trees, stumps and whatever he could grasp for anchors, and the rest of us winched from truck to truck. In the process of pulling my line out and dragging it to Phil's truck I got a boot stuck in the muck and came up with a socked foot, slipped and fell, dipping myself from the chest down in the goo. I was able to get my boot back, but it was full of mud when I slipped it back on. Just something to add to the ambience of the evening.
Each winch forward gained us about 60 feet, then we stopped and acted as an anchor for the truck behind us. Once all trucks were moved forward, the back truck, Kris, called his brother Mark at the front, and mark would reattach to the next anchor point, we'd all set to freewheel, and go through the process again. It took about 6 of these rounds, each taking about 20 minutes to get through the gap. Now it was close to midnight. Both drivers and passengers were snoozing in their seats, aroused by the call on the radio that it was their turn. After we got through this, it was kind of a blur as everyone was dead tired. Phil had been able to latch onto a GPS track from the previous trip as we got closer to Gatcho Lake, which was a good thing as the forest had opened up and there were numerous unmarked trails that we had no idea which was the right route in the dark. By feel, GPS and radio we all followed Phil through what felt like a maze of turns and twists and finally brought us to Gatcho. Phil had gotten pretty confident due to his GPS waypoints and I think the only thing that kept us all awake was how fast he was trucking through the dark and us trying to keep up. We got all the way up to third gear, low range!
Suddenly we rolled into a corralled clearing and we recognized the compound of trappers cabins that are on the north end of the lake. Without further though I pulled up to one of the cabins, rolled out our bedrolls and Pamela, Oliver and I crashed for the night. It was fairly clean, and except for a curious packrat several hours later we slept well. Others took the route of a good stiff drink for relaxation, but for all of us in the morning the previous night felt rather surreal.