Belat­ed­ly, under pub­lic pres­sure, the gov­ern­ment of British Colum­bia has in recent years moved to make amends for its inat­ten­tive, destruc­tive man­age­ment of lands and waters in the Cas­cade Range just north of the U.S.-Canada border.

Until recent times, hik­ers in our Mount Bak­er Wilder­ness or North Cas­cades Nation­al Park would climb to a high ridge, just south of the bor­der, and stare into the clearcuts of Depot Creek, Tomy­hoi Creek and Masel­panik Creek.

The province once acqui­esced to a 122-foot rais­ing of Ross Dam, which would have flood­ed eight miles of the “Mag­ic Skag­it” in B.C., for an annu­al pay­ment of $35,700. A cit­i­zen group called Run Out Skag­it Spoil­ers (R.O.S.S.) raised hell, and pushed the province and city of Seat­tle to the bar­gain­ing table.

Ulti­mate­ly, a set­tle­ment was reached: Seat­tle received pow­er from a Cana­di­an dam, and the “High Ross” project was history.

Activism has won anoth­er sweet, sweep­ing vic­to­ry in the upper Skag­it water­shed. The Province of British Colum­bia has announced a buy­out of min­ing rights owned by Impe­r­i­al Met­als, the folks respon­si­ble for the Mount Pol­ley dis­as­ter of 2014, which saw a reten­tion dam burst and send tail­ings into Ques­nel Lake.

It’s a tale of devi­ous gov­ern­ment and resource­ful greens.

British Colum­bia has two provin­cial parks butting into each oth­er and just over the bor­der, the Skag­it Val­ley Provin­cial Park and to the east E.C. Man­ning Provin­cial Park. You can canoe in the Upper Skag­it – a place where wolves rein­tro­duced them­selves to the val­ley – or hike up to alpine mead­ows in Man­ning Park.

Sur­round­ed by the two parks, and unpro­tect­ed, is a 5,800 hectare (14,400 acre) area pop­u­lar­ly called the “Donut Hole” or more offi­cial­ly, Sil­ver Daisy Creek.

The creek is a Skag­it trib­u­tary, but was large­ly overlooked.

Map show­ing the loca­tion of the “donut hole” in the Upper Skag­it water­shed (Click or tap to enlarge)

That is, until… sev­er­al lead­ers of the Van­cou­ver-based Wilder­ness Com­mit­tee trekked into the area ear­ly this cen­tu­ry and dis­cov­ered indus­tri­al log­ging under­way. They raised a very pub­lic protest, and the province promised to back off. But B.C. Tim­ber Sales had the chain­saws going again in 2018.

The min­ing indus­try in B.C. has long gone and done what it wanted.

Only once has a major project been thwart­ed, with preser­va­tion of the Tat­shen­shi­ni Riv­er at the north­west cor­ner of the province. Once and future prime min­is­ters, Pierre and Justin Trudeau, raft­ed the riv­er. The right-wing Fras­er Insti­tute in Van­cou­ver yelped about the lost min­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for years after­ward, but the “Tat’ is now one of North America’s fabled raft­ing rivers.

Mt. Pol­ley made the pub­lic stand up and take notice, although Impe­r­i­al nev­er paid any penal­ty for the tail­ings dam col­lapse. The com­pa­ny applied for a five-year per­mit to drill for hold in its hold­ings. The con­tro­ver­sy, this time, crossed the bor­der, since down­stream in “the States” our Skag­it Riv­er is home to the most viable salmon runs in the Puget Sound area.

British Colum­bia is gov­erned by the left-of-cen­ter New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, a polit­i­cal home to both lum­ber work­ers and envi­ron­men­tal­ists (includ­ing vet­er­ans of the R.O.S.S. Com­mit­tee). For­tu­nate­ly, the NDP has nev­er been under the thumb of the min­ing indus­try. The gov­ern­ment of Pre­mier John Hor­gan final­ly put the kibosh on Donut Hole log­ging two years ago. On Jan­u­ary 19th came the sweet­est win: Impe­r­i­al Met­als’ claims have been bought out.

“It’s been a long time com­ing: This vic­to­ry is sweet indeed,” said Joy Foley, a Wilder­ness Com­mit­tee cam­paign­er and vet­er­an of the province’s con­tin­u­ing old growth for­est battles.

Elect­ed lead­ers on both sides of the 49th Par­al­lel were quick to cel­e­brate what the pub­lic prod­ded them into doing.

“This mile­stone reflects on the impor­tant rela­tion­ship we have with our neigh­bor in Wash­ing­ton state,” said Pre­mier Hor­gan. The buy­out of min­ing claims is “a shin­ing exam­ple of cross-bor­der col­lab­o­ra­tion,” added Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.

Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell, D‑Washington, put it best.

“This agree­ment is a big win for the entire region, because the head­wa­ters of the Upper Skag­it Riv­er is the heart of the Puget Sound Ecosys­tem, sup­ply­ing clean and fresh water. And it is a big win for salmon, espe­cial­ly the endan­gered Chi­nook that treaty tribes, orcas and our region’s econ­o­my depend.”

The Province of British Colum­bia will now con­sult with Abo­rig­i­nal First Nations tribes – anoth­er con­stituen­cy of the New Democ­rats – on the future of the Donut Hole. The Upper Skag­it is a tar­get­ed zone for griz­zly bear recovery.

Oth­er good news: The Cana­di­an and B.C. gov­ern­ments, and First Nations, are in the final stages of cre­at­ing Canada’s newest nation­al park.

It will be at the far east end of the Cas­cade Range, in val­leys of the Okana­gan and Sim­ilka­meen Rivers. The new park will take in Canada’s only desert, the fan­tas­tic bird and wildlife habi­tat around Vaseux Lakes, and topog­ra­phy in which signs warn of rat­tlesnakes at val­ley bot­toms while moun­tain goats and ptarmi­gan roam moun­tain ridges far above.

The les­son to take away: Cit­i­zens who love the “Mag­ic Skag­it” made this possible.