Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park

IUCN Category II - National Park

The Carmanah Giant, a Sitka spruce in the park

The Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park, or formerly Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park, is a 16,450 -hectare Provincial Park on the west coast of Vancouver Iceland in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The park is located about 20 kilometers in a straight line north of Port Renfrew in the Cowichan Valley Regional District. Only the Pacific Rim National Park separates the park from the coast of the Juan de Fuca Strait.

This Provincial Park is a so-called backcountry park. These parks usually have no direct connection to a proper road and they are not only accessible via dirt roads or logging roads or on roads. Here is the official park entrance can only be reached by long rides on gravel roads and logging roads from Port Alberni or from Lake Cowichan.

Plant

The park is located in a relatively highly rugged area on the edge of the Seymour Range, a sub-chain of the Vancouver Iceland Ranges. The local mountains are not particularly high, the highest reach only about 1000 m, rise, however, partly steeply.

In addition to the mountain range of the park by various rivers and lakes is crossed. The main rivers are the Walbran Creek and Carmanah Creek, the main lakes are the Glad Lake and Anderson Lake.

In the park is a protected area category II (National Park).

History

The park was established in 1990. For the establishment of the park, there was due to significant public unrest in 1988, when logging companies "accidentally" in the field of large and old and therefore very valuable for them trees could make clearcuts. The park name is now composed of two parts. On the one hand, the proportion Carmanah, according to the main creek in the park, and on the other from the proportion Walbran, after John Thomas Walbran, a Canadian hydrologists and author of a book on the origin of place names, river names, and so on Canada's west coast. The park changed it over time both its name, was originally called the Park Carmanah Pacific Park, as well as its status and its limits.

However, as with almost all provincial parks in British Columbia also applies to this that he long before the area populated by immigrants or she was part of a park, they refuse and Jagd-/Fischereigebiet different tribes of First Nations, here mainly the Ditidaht by the people the Nuu- chah- nulth, was.

Flora and Fauna

The year-round mild, moist climate leads to ideal conditions for the development of comprehensive epiphytic communities in the treetops. An equally large piece of this temperate coastal rainforest contains twice the biomass of a tropical rainforest.

Within the ecosystem of British Columbia, the park area is assigned to different zones, the Coastal Western Hemlock zone here with the Very Wet Maritime Subzone Hyper, the Montane Very Wet Maritime Subzone and the submontane Very Wet Maritime Subzone.

A forestry use on a larger scale did not take place in the park. Therefore, it will also provide still very much primary forest. Due to the fact can be found in the park, a relatively large number of plants. On trees are found mainly widespread species such as Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock and red cedar and Douglas fir. This diversity is also reflected in the undergrowth with numerous mosses and ferns. The protest in 1988 also rescued a special group of Sitka spruce before impact. This group of spruce trees has partially reached an age of up to 1000 years and also a considerable height. The largest of these spruces, derCarmanah Giant has reached a height of around 96 meters and has a circumference at breast height of about 9.5 meters. The tree is then considered the largest in Canada and the largest Sitka Spruce in the world.

The detectable species corresponding to the location of the park. In the area you will find various predators such as the American black bear, the puma or spruce marten. Although the park also occur wolves, they are almost never seen. There are also in the park, various deer species such as elk and mule deer. Furthermore comes here, in front of partially especially because of the old trees, the Flicker, the firebrand Sapsucker and the Gnome pygmy. The park is an important breeding and habitat of endangered species such as the spotted owl and the Marmelalk. The various rivers, streams and lakes provide habitat for chinook salmon and coho salmon, as well as for Cutthroatforelle, Dolly Varden trout and rainbow trout.

Activities

The park offers only a few tent prepared surfaces and has very simple sanitary facilities.

The tourist attraction of the park are the great and ancient Sitka spruce, very particularly the Carmanah Giant, the Three Sisters and Heaven Tree. The paths to these trees / tree groups are partially implemented as a raised wooden walkways. The entire existing tourism infrastructure is located in the western part of the park. In the eastern part of the park, the park has no tourist infrastructure and it should not be set up by the park administration.

Although within the park several short hiking trails and camping areas were created, visitors of the park administration officially discouraged to visit the park. This is to protect the park and its ecosystem.