We took the highway out of Tofino towards the junction. Today our aim was to reach Virgin Falls, right at the end of the inlet. Our only access was through a logging road, so we left the main junction and headed off through the thick forest along a stony track. The irony wasn’t lost that in order to gain access to the wilder places, we were using a road designed to facilitate the rape of the forests. Either side of the track lay thick forest. As we drove, everyone scanned for a bear – a high point of the trip if we were to catch a glimpse of one – your eyes lost their bearings a few rows of trees in. It was as if the forest began to swallow you. I’m sure a lot of this was second growth, you could tell by the size of the trees around. Nonetheless, it seemed wild. There was an edge of the unknown about. You could imagine losing yourself here.
As we passed Kennedy Lake and the road got somewhat worse, we started to see the inlet to our left; little coves accessible only by boat lay at the base of sheer slopes where we were level with the tops of trees. To the right, the rock cutting loomed high above, exacerbated by mighty trees which seemed precariously perched on the edge but whose branches and trunks towered above us so far that it made you dizzy looking at the heads of them. We had been driving nearly an hour by now and we began to feel very distant from all the bustle of Tofino on Easter Sunday. It was as if the deeper into the forest we travelled, the further away from our society we ended up.
Suddenly we broke through the forest cover and were faced with a testament to our ability to make our mark on surroundings. A swathe of clear-cuts lay ahead of us. You can never prepare yourself for the devastation of a clear-cut area and I am always horrorstruck at the brutality of this. I wish to remain so. If I become inured to this then it would be to deny the fundamental horror of the rape of these forests. There is a careless air of disregard surrounding clear-cut areas – only humans could execute something so vicious. Broken stumps lay all around – indiscriminate, universal destruction. How many years combined did these trees live and how little thought and time went into the action severing their links with this world? The action was irreparable – no matter how many seedlings were planted, how hard they had worked at removing the roads, the damage had already been done. This ecosystem had been destroyed and while a new one grew now in its place, this new one would be different. We can never know what has been lost in this place. A part of this is our own loss. In being a species that can do this, we show that we have lost our connection with the forests around, we are out of sync with the natural world.
We found the falls, the river level was low (there hadn’t been much snow that year, the winter had been mild, another symptom of our changing climate). The falls were still beautiful. Along the way the road bridged several small rivers. Looking either side of the bridge, icy cold water, clear as only crystal iced flow from high mountains is, bubbled over grey, river-worn stones, forming pebble beaches rimming meanders. We scanned for fish – we saw none, although the warning signs were there to prevent the dumping of garbage and engine oil in a fish habitat. They were too well camouflaged on the rocks for us to see from afar. As we drove out, I checked the high tree-line for lone bears coming out of hibernation. We were more likely to see one than a cougar. High up, on harsh inhospitable slopes, steep and tree-ladened, the bears remained hidden today. A wise move on their part for we are the more dangerous species of the two.
As we followed the logging road back, the mountain-filled horizon was visible. One of the party pointed out that it was a traditional view of Canada. In the far distance, rugged snow-covered peaks stood, almost close enough to touch but distant enough not to be of my world. Despite the fact that individual trees were visible, or perhaps because of that, I could visualise the isolation there. In the mid-ground, dense forested peaks, covered from base to top with cedar and fir, a green cloak hiding so much. Contemporary Canada had had its say, however, as in the foreground a clear-cut slope screamed its presence, justified in its position in the vista as much a part of wild Canada as the trees that once occupied that space, although not something the tour brochures broadcast.
We need to be reminded sometimes, that there are wild places.
