There’s a moment in my day that guarantees a gut punch. It takes my breath away every time, like a balloon popped in my face, a sudden blast of reality. How can this be?
It happens when I pass by the desolation zone next to the Co-op, where our lovely Tribune Bay Campsite once stood.
When they announced the province was taking it over, I thought, fine, maybe they’ll protect the land. That’s what parks are for, right? Then they unveiled their plan for the wetlands and we all screamed, and they backed off…sorta. And now we’re all nervous about what comes next.
But I never asked what they were going to do in the existing campground. I thought for sure they’d keep the big trees, clean things up, work around what was there. That would make sense. It would be the sane thing to do.
But HAHAHAHA no. Silly me. What they’re doing is beyond insane. They’ve scraped the entire property, removed the top foot or so of soil and bulldozed it off to the side, crushing anything that lived there. They ripped out most of the trees, left a scraggly few around the edges, and now they’re burying the whole thing under a mountainous mound of gravel crush. Apparently, they are going to build a brand new campground from scratch and lay it over a bed of gravel.
I imagine someone could explain, in reasonable sounding terms, why that’s the most efficient or cost-effective way. But you know what? That land was special. Things grew there. Big old trees full of life.
I lived at the campground for the shoulder season while I worked there back in 1995. It was a magical, living land. I felt wrapped in enchantment each night I slept there in my tent, with leaves shushing me to sleep overhead, moon and starlight peeping through the branches.
In summer when it was full of people, they seemed touched by wonderment, tuning in to the vivid life all around them. They spoke of it. It was an otherworldly place, that campground by the beach. It had a history. A life of its own.
It was also a landing ground, a first taste of Hornby’s vibe and lifestyle. Now? Instead of touching the pulse of the land, being held under the branches of great spreading maples and cedars, linking to the life of the island as a whole, folks will have the experience of staying in a provincial campground exactly like every other. Disconnected from the land. Torn from its context.
I don’t understand one thing, though. Other provincial campgrounds have trees. This one will have the barest few. Trees make a campground special—give it privacy, connect it to nature. What will this parody of a campground use for trees?
It’s too late for protests now. The deed’s been done. They bulldozed, logged, scraped, and shoved mountains of gravel around. Whee! Such fun.
As to “Why?” Because we let them. Because they hold the power, the money, the authority. Because they can.
The whole thing makes me sick.
Before I moved to Hornby, I lived on Saltspring for three years. I loved it there. It was magical, especially to me, fresh from the rural North. In those three years, the island’s character was violated over and over. They paved the grassy, treed boulevards that shaded downtown Ganges. A man named Keith McHattie painted himself green and stood alone in the middle of the road in protest. For weeks. They allowed condos to be built on a beautiful piece of publicly accessible land called Grace Point. They logged stand after stand of massive old-growth trees. It was legal, naturally. All in the best interests of someone or other. It changed the island permanently.
Saltspring was a divided community, they did not have a united voice. People protested in large numbers, especially about the paving over of the boulevards, literally for parking lots, and there were movements to prevent the worst of the abuses. All futile. The juggernaut of development was implacable.
I moved to Hornby to get away from that. Hornby was smaller and strongly committed to its vision. Shortly after moving here, I participated in the Raven Lumber protests. It was miraculous to me, that we succeeded in preventing the property that now holds the Community Garden from being logged off. Later, I served on the Executive during a time when the Regional District was pushing hard to force the island to adopt a more conventional style of governance. We succeeded in resisting that, too.
But the juggernaut has arrived, and the community is no longer united as it was. Every little surrender leads to the next, greater surrender. I pray we can hold on to the core of what makes our island vital and unique. And please, let us hold fast on Tribune Bay, make sure they do not do in the rest of the park what they are now doing to the campground. Let’s exercise our ‘no’ before it’s too late.
On an unrelated note: I’m sorry, Denman songwriter friends. We’ve been forced to move the songwriter circle group to Mondays at 7pm. If you have a place to stay on the island, you are always welcome.
That’s what I think. What do you think? Email me at phoenixonhornby@gmail.com
Hello, phoenix
I have to agree with you. In my words. It’s absolutely awful and savage what they’ve done there; they’ve torn everything out, every living thing that was in the ground there is probably gone. when I first heard that the government was taking over the campsite. I thought, oh, good. the grounds and the forest will be taken care of almost everything will be left standing ,will be working around it .this was such a shock to me when I saw what they did there, I know my saying that I’ve been here over half a century doesn’t mean much now, I just never thought that the island would become like this, all for the people, who are coming here, none of this is for us. we aren’t even consulted anymore. I just want to thank you for bringing this up, because I think it’s important, and I think this event probably saddens many of the residents who’ve lived here for a long time.
Thanks, Gabe… It’s really strange. All the comments on the contractors post on Facebook, everyone is complementing him, thanking him, giving glowing reports about how beautiful it’s going to be. It’s a weird. But everyone who has responded to me, has agreed with me. Give it a few years… They say… It’ll be fine. Those old trees are not gonna grow back in a few years. Those tourists in their tents are going to swelter in the summer heat without those shade trees. And it’s gonna be so dusty. What were they thinking, thinking they’d need drainage in a summer campground on a dry island like this? It’s insane.