My phone buzzed at 10:25pm on a Monday night a month ago. New unread text.
“Clear your schedule Wednesday, we’re going to the Walbran” - Will.
My heart sunk and my nerves started to rattle. I didn’t know if I wanted to do this.
After a summer of guiding, I had flown to Victoria for a couple weeks to hang out with my folks, play a show with my Dad and go backpacking with a few friends. The Walbran Valley, a mystical ancient forest of gigantic cedars, was not on my radar but heavy on my mind. There had been time when the Walbran had been an obsession but a lot had changed since. Back then, I was either in the Walbran, on my way there, or exhausted, covered in mud and heading back to Victoria for more supplies.
For four years in my late twenties my life was dominated by this valley. Everything I did was totally devoted to being in the ‘Bran'. I wanted to help build and maintain the trail network, find its hidden big trees, and bring awareness to this incredible ecosystem that was in danger of being logged. It was a time in my life when I had huge chunks of time off between band tours with my trumpet and minimal expenses. I had moved back into my parent’s basement and, maybe because of that, had a burning need to prove something to myself and the world.
I started this trail building adventure with no real experience and no idea what I was doing. For the first few weeks, I was using a rock as a hammer, a little bow saw to cut through blocks, and a little hatchet that would take hours to cut through anything. It was hard and very slow work. One day, on a cold November day about 6-7 days into a 13 day trail building trip, I was working on opening an old overgrown access trail. It hadn’t stopped torrentially raining in days, everything was soaked, and I was sharing a leaky tent with my ex-girlfriend. Back then, I was willing to overlook any tempestuous and virulent interpersonal conflicts if it meant I had someone to help me go trailbuiliding (aka a truck to borrow). As we were clearing six foot tall Salal bushes and not talking to each other (we were… ahem… in an argument), this tall guy sauntered up our cleared path and introduced himself as Will. I didn’t realize it then, but my life had just changed course in a big way.
Will at a work site.
Will gave me the opportunity to take my trailbuilding passion to the next level. He too had large amounts of time off in winter, had access to his parent’s truck, owned multiple chainsaws and most importantly also shared this raging inner fire demanding he prove himself. Over the next four years, Will and I would work tirelessly and relentlessly in the awfully wet and cold months of winter to replace most of the boardwalks, open new trails, and photograph our work and promote the Walbran Valley through my blog and our pseudo-organization the Coastal Trail Collective. At our peak, we would drive out for 4-7 days at a time burning through 50 pound boxes of nails a day building boardwalk. We would drive back to Victoria, grab more nails, tofurkey dogs and coffee before turning around and heading right back. When I was burnt out and exhausted, Will’s boundless energy would carry my complaining butt onto the next trip. I would begrudgingly follow him into the bush and his 5th sense at finding big trees would bring us into the most beautiful and stunning groves of trees with trunks that would exceed 50+ feet in circumference. I would then watch in awe as his incredible woodworking skills would conjure up boardwalk trails out of thin air.
Drying out in the tent.
The Crown Jewel Grove
One time a giant tree fell across the FSR on our way home on a 50+mm rain day. It took 4 hours to cut a gap big enough for my car to drive through, but it ripped the muffler off. Here’s Will trying to fix it.
Will
Those years contained so many stories, emotions and adventures that it’s hard to coherently put it all down on paper. How do you describe the helicopters with their giant claws plucking trees from the ground, the war like sounds of the road blasting crew, the early blockades made of equal parts passion, disorganization, bravery and mould, the rain that would flood everything and lift entire trees into the river, the trill of using a chainsaw to create beautiful boardwalks, big timber and its flawless grain and inebriating smell, the euphoria of completing a new trail in impassable jungle, the rage of seeing new clearcuts and the trees you loved pilled high on the road, the pain and exhaustion of working your body raw, and the sweet victory of opening a bag of chips on the drive out.
Walbran trailbuilding with Will was my life for years and became a pillar of who I am today. It transformed me and steered me towards a career in outdoor education and commercial guiding, my partner Emma, and a life that now focuses on living, working and playing outside.
Life took its turns and I started moving around BC in my early thirties before finally settling up north in the Yukon. The north was a refuge for me from the dark side of BC’s old growth forests. The more time I spent exploring Vancouver Island, the more I found it upsetting that our forests were disappearing from wanton forestry practices. Climb any mountain and you’ll see roads and clearcuts. You simply cannot go anywhere without seeing the effects of logging. At least the Yukon, with its spindly trees and bare alpine lands, hides its environmental carnage. There is no forestry up here and the mines occupy a tiny fraction of the landscape. The damage is just as bad, but at least I can’t see it. I know, it’s hypocritical and an awful way of looking at things but I just couldn’t continue staring at the wounds of logging any longer.
Moving to the north felt like a betrayal to the valley I had sworn to protect. I was in Whitehorse when Will started a movement at Fairy creek. I was not there when the RCMP beat up non-violent forest defenders, I didn’t protest in front of the legislature, and I watched from afar when the logging trucks drove up the road. I felt like an armchair environmentalist who told embellished stories about that time I spent in the woods, clawing for relevance when others were sacrificing everything for the trees. It was a hard pill to swallow thinking that my Walbran chapter had passed.
Since then, whenever I was visiting Vancouver Island the Walbran would feel like a dark shadow. The enduring, life changing impacts the valley had had on me now filled my mind with a mix of pride, shame and confusion. I hadn’t figured out how to reconnect with the rainforest and I wanted to avoid it.
SO ANYWAY! Will texts and says we’re going to the Walbran, in a day, on an epic mission and I kind of freak out. I was not mentally ready for this. Was I even in shape enough to keep up? I see Will as a bit of a superhuman and in my prime always struggled to keep up with him. Now, with some slow guide legs, could I even think of following him into the rainforest? What about the Walbran? Would I feel the same sense of attachment, or just guilt and shame.
I tried pushing down the stress and anxiety brewing in my mind as I reluctantly told Will I was onboard and game for and an adventure. It was going to be a massive day trip with 7 hours of driving and who knows how many hours tromping through the forest and wading down the river in wetsuits. Bring a headlamp he said.
In the end the trip didn’t happen. Our ride to the Walbran bailed and instead Will, his friend Maddy and I went for a leisurely drive to Port Renfrew. We brushed out some new boardwalk in Jurassic Grove, discovered a cool limestone cave far up a logging road, and bushwacked some flagged cut blocks to find some really big Doug Firs.
It was an easy, enjoyable adventure on a beautiful fall day. It felt like the first step towards reconnecting with the forests of Vancouver Island.
I still don’t know where I stand and how I feel, but next time I’ll go figure that out in the Walbran.
