Sea to Sky Backcountry Forum

Background

This is the fact sheet for those wishing to write a letter of support for the Sea to Sky Winter Backcountry forum. Anything helps!!!

In September 2001, the Sea to Sky Winter Backcountry Recreation Forum (Winter Forum) began monthly meetings to resolve the growing conflict among recreation users in the Sea to Sky backcountry. The Winter Forum included representatives from outdoor recreation clubs (backcountry skiers, snowshoers and snowmobilers), commercial recreation operators (heli-ski, snow-cat and snowmobile tour operators), and government representatives. All representatives recognized the increasing and often conflicting recreational demands placed on the Sea to Sky backcountry. There are over six million recreational visits to the Sea to Sky corridor each year. The number of recreational visits will increase with the 2010 Olympics.

The vision of the Forum was to find a way for all recreational users to have reasonable access to an enjoyable experience in the Sea to Sky backcountry. After almost two years of consultations, discussions and negotiations, the Winter Forum developed a Winter Sharing Accord, which designates areas in the Sea to Sky backcountry for different recreational uses. The Winter Sharing Accord was signed off by all Forum participants. Every user group made compromises and trade-offs in order to achieve the Winter Sharing Accord. The Winter Sharing Accord is therefore a total package, balancing the recreational interests of each user group and thereby minimizing conflicts between the different user groups.

Unfortunately, Land and Water BC Inc. (LWBC), the provincial Crown Corporation which issues commercial recreation tenures in the Sea to Sky Corridor, has consistently ignored the Winter Sharing Accord and has issued commercial tenures which are inconsistent with the Winter Sharing Accord. As a result of the actions of LWBC, the Winter Sharing Accord has been severely compromised, undermining the balance achieved among the different recreational user groups. With respect to non-motorized users, the only areas left for non-motorized recreation outside Garibaldi Park are 21 Mile Creek and Mt. Sproatt. Furthermore, commercial recreation tenures are being issued without the benefit of carrying capacity studies, which are needed to ensure that the quality of the backcountry recreational experience is maintained in the Sea to Sky backcountry.

Government Contacts

The Winter Forum is currently involved in ongoing negotiations and discussions at various levels of government regarding the Winter Sharing Accord. The Winter Forum is therefore seeking letters of support from recreational users of the Sea to Sky backcountry. Letters should be directed to the following government representatives and to the CEO of LWBC:

Kevin Kriese
Project Director, Strategic Initiatives Divison (Smithers)
3726 Alfred St
SMITHERS BC V0J2N0
250 847-7789				

Mike Lambert, Associate Deputy Minister
Ministry of Agriculture and Lands
Integrated Land Management Agency
PO Box 9352, STN PROV GOVT
Victoria, BC V8W 9M1

Honourable Pat Bell, Minister
Ministry of Agriculture and Lands
PO Box 9043, STN PROV GOVT, Victoria
Victoria, B.C.  V8W 9E2
Fax:  250-387-1023

Honourable Gordon Campbell, Premier
Province of British Columbia
P.O. Box 9041, STN PROV GOVT
Victoria, B.C.  V8W 9E1
Fax:  250-387-0087
E-mail:  premier@gov.bc.ca

Note: Kevin Kriese is from Smithers but has been brought in as a specialist first nations negoitator for the Sea to Sky LRMP. He is currently negotiating the LRMP adjustments with the Lilwat First Nation, but I understand that he is responsible for most of the LRMP.

Letters of Support

The key points to raise in the letters are:

• Identify yourself as a recreational user of the Sea to Sky backcountry.
• Your support for the Winter Sharing Accord developed by the Sea to Sky Winter Backcountry Recreation Forum because it balances the recreational interests of all user groups, including the motorized and non-motorized recreational users.
• Government should honour the Winter Sharing Accord and support the implementation of the Winter Sharing Accord.
• Land and Water BC Inc. should honour the Winter Sharing Accord and stop issuing commercial recreation tenures which are inconsistent and incompatible with the Winter Sharing Accord.
• Before more commercial recreation tenures are issued in the Sea to Sky backcountry, carrying capacity studies should be conducted to ensure that the quality of the backcountry wilderness recreational experience is maintained in the Sea to Sky backcountry.
• Any changes to the accord must be negotiated with all users and stakeholders to ensure a fair outcome in the spirit of the original accord. Unilateral changes by the government are not acceptable.

If you have any questions or need more information regarding the Winter Forum or the Winter Sharing Accord for the Sea to Sky corridor, please contact Monika Bittel at monikabittel@telus.net or call 604-983-3097. If you write a letter, please forward copy of it to Monika Bittel c/o BCMC, P.O. Box 2674, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3W8 or send a copy via e-mail. Thank you for your support.

2007/2008 Update

There are several issues threatening the forum recommendations and the government is considering taking unilateral action to change the forum zoning. In particular this affects Phelix Creek and the Brian Waddington Hut and Mount Sproat.

Phelix Creek Issues

• Local snowmobilers don't want to be excluded from Phelix, even though their use is low.
• A snowmobiler petition was submitted with 121 signatures. This prompted a counter petition which gathered about 250 real and 700 electronic signatures.
• Harry Redman is leading the charge. He opted out of participating in the stakeholder forum and now wants the government to change the LRMP unilaterally to his liking. Apparantly he has made a fairly significant contribution to Minister Pat Bell's election campaign. Many suspect that he's just trying to break up the forum altogether by going after one of the prime non motorized zones.

Sproat Issues

• Canadian Snowmobile Adventures has been operating in the Callaghan Valley for a number of years under short term tenures. They are being displaced by the new Whistler Nordic Center / Whister Olympic Park. They want to take over the south side of Mount Sproatt, which was recommended as a non-motorized zone by the forum. Their operation will include helicopter accessed snowmobiling in the spring.
• Sproat has high values for day use backcountry skiing and it's one of the few day use areas south of the Duffey Lake road. The new nordic center road will make access even easier and increase use. The north side of Sproat is non-motorized (and will remain non motorized) because it is a drinking water supply area for Whistler. Presently, snowmobilers violate this boundary on a regular basis.
• Canadian Snowmobile Adventures wants to build a new snowmobile base in close proximity to the Olympic Nordic Center.
• The government seems to be lumping cross country and back country skiers together, saying that we are gaining the new facilities in exchange. However, the XC trails are not attractive to BC skiers, and the good BC ski terrain in the upper callaghan is too far away to access for a day trip. This is an important point to emphasize.
• Canadian Snowmobile Adventures should seek a replacement tenure in an area that is not a popular BC skiing destination. This process needs to be guided by the forum.

Sample Letters

Also see the wiki page Snowmobiling near Brian Waddington Hut for another sample letter and more background information.

2004 VOC letter

Here is a copy of the letter sent on behalf of the VOC. Everyone's name didn't fit on but I tried! (Milena)

March 19, 2004 Varsity Outdoor Club Box 98 Student Union Building 6138 Student Union Mall Vancouver BC V6T 2B9

RE: Sea to Sky Backcountry Recreation Forum

Honourable Gordon Campbell, Premier Province of British Columbia PO Box 9041 STN PROV GOVT Victoria BC V8W 9E1

Dear Premier Campbell,

We, the executive council of the Varsity Outdoor Club at the University of British Columbia, are writing to express our support of the Sea to Sky Winter Backcountry Recreation Sharing Forum, and the Sharing Accord produced by the Forum.

In case you are not familiar with the Forum, here is a bit of history: in September 2001 a group of community members representing non-motorized backcountry recreationists such as skiers; motorized users such as snowmobilers; and commercial tenure holders, began to hold meetings about backcountry recreation in the Sea to Sky corridor of the Squamish Forest District. Their goal was to create a plan that would ensure that all users of the area would have reasonable access to an enjoyable experience in the backcountry by minimizing the incidences of user conflicts between different groups. A group of approximately 30 people have been meeting once per month since then, and have written and mapped a Sharing Accord which divides the backcountry of the Squamish Forest District into specific use areas. In some areas all use types are permitted (for example, backcountry skiing and snowmobiling are both permitted), and in other areas motorized use is restricted to ensure that non-motorized users have a protected enjoyable experience. For more information on the Forum, we suggest that you refer to the Winter Forum's website at www.backcountryforum.org, or that you speak with MSRM employees Malcolm Leung (formerly with Land and Water BC), Kevin Lee (with LWBC), or Ross Kreye (with the LRMP). Under the guidance of the newly formed Sea to Sky Backcountry Recreation Forum Association, the Sharing Accord map is being included as Recreation's contribution to the draft Squamish Land and Resource Management Plan.

The Sharing Accord is a finely balanced agreement between user groups that was laboriously constructed through an intensive consultation process to ensure that all users concerns were fairly represented. However, despite verbal support of the Sharing Accord from Land and Water BC, and the presence of representatives from LWBC throughout the process, conflicting tenures continue to be granted by LWBC in the Sea to Sky corridor. A conflicting tenure is one that allows a commercial operator to conduct an activity that is restricted in that area by the Sharing Accord, (eg. allowing a heli-skiing operation to ski in a Non-Motorized area, or permitting snowmobile tours in a Non-Motorized with Restricted Motorized Access Area). From the start, Forum participants laboured to shape the map around existing tenures, and with each new conflicting tenure granted, the map changes, and the carefully constructed balance - reasonable access to an enjoyable experience for all users - is being lost. With each new tenure granted, non-motorized users especially have lost areas that were protected from motorized use, and these areas cannot be regained until the tenures expire. As an organization primarily engaged in non motorized activities, the Varsity Outdoor Club is concerned that our rights to an enjoyable experience are being lost along with these areas.

As you can see, LWBC has undermined the Sharing Accord and the efforts of the Forum to represent all user groups, including both motorized and non motorized, commercial and public recreationists. The Varsity Outdoor Club would like at this time to express our unequivocal support for the efforts of the Backcountry Forum in developing this Sharing Accord and to make two recommendations on how the Provincial Government, through the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management, should approach this problem. The first is that LWBC should be forbidden from issuing tenures that conflict with the Sharing Accord map. Since this map was developed with all users in mind by a broad based coalition representing a variety of interests, it is only fair that the wishes of the recreation community be reflected in the decisions to grant tenures. The second is that it be put in writing in the LRMP that no tenures with use that conflicts with the LRMP Winter Backcountry Recreation map (currently almost the same as the Sharing Accord map) shall be granted, and that no currently existing conflicting tenures shall be replaced with new conflicting tenures, should the current tenure holder wish to forfeit their tenure, or should their tenure expire.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We believe that this Forum has had great success in bringing together a diverse variety of groups with one common goal in mind the enjoyment of British Columbia's beautiful backcountry areas. We feel the Sharing Accord is a progressive solution to the conflicts which occur in the backcountry, and hope that with your support, the Forum's goal can be realized. Your prompt actions on this matter will be truly appreciated by the Varsity Outdoor Club, and all recreationists in the Sea to Sky corridor.

Respectfully,

Roberta Holden (President) Chris Stathers (Vice President) Sandra Nicol (Sea to Sky Winter Backcountry Forum Representative) Milena Semproni (Sea to Sky Summer Backcountry Forum Representative)

On Behalf of the:

Membership and Executive of the Varsity Outdoor Club, University of British Columbia

cc: Honourable George Abbott, Minister of Sustainable Resource Management Bill Valentine, CEO, Land and Water BC Inc.