BCTS (BC Timber Sales) is planning on auctioning off a 42 HA old growth cut block immediately adjacent to Cape Scott Provincial Park in the Dakota Creek Watershed this year.
This would only be the SECOND cut block ever to be logged in the intact Dakota Creek Watershed.
Western Forest Products has applied to build a sprawling road network into a last fringe of old growth forest along the pacific ocean near the outlet of Quintino Sounds and north of Grants Bay. This forest contains old group red cedar with remarkable canopies and is near some of the most productive old growth forest on Northern Vancouver Island.
As of the end of February 2023 this road building has not been approved.
Kwatleo Creek on Northern Vancouver Island contains some of the most spectacular cedar forests remaining in British Columbia. The groves here are truly the best of the best of BC’s endangered old growth forest. This area is part of TFL 6 and is unprotected. This area has seen over 80 years of industrial logging, and it is truly remarkable that any of these grandest cedar groves remain intact. You can easily explore this area by following the road past Winter Harbor; these trees are immediately visible from the road a few kilometers before it dead ends at Grant Bay. This old growth forest stretches for over 100 ha.
Weather conditions did not allow for a thorough exploration of this grove however in the short time we were there, and within minutes of entering the forest we found two cedar trees measuring 3.6 and 3.5 m in diameter.
There are no logging approvals in this forest, however that could change any day. I will certainly be monitoring this area.
Up until 2021 this was the only remaining section of old growth on Quatse Lake which is the water supply for the Quatsino First Nation. Western Forest Products clear-cut this area leaving a meager buffer to protect the lake. Up until recently this was the closest and most accessible old growth forest for cultural uses for the Quatsino Nation.
