by Terry Ludwar

This season can be a time for reflection. For me, thoughts of the incredible place where we live, Powell River, the Pearl of the Sunshine Coast, surrounded by nature, is high on my list. Thoughts of our place in the biosphere of the earth and what’s happening to it move me to write about it as I experience it.

A place whose natural features I have come to know intimately, especially our ecosystems and plant life, is the Wildwood Bluffs, adjacent and north of Catalyst paper mill. There is a bench, perched on one of the bluffs, where I have sat many times, facing Harwood Island and the Georgia Strait; to the left, Texada; across the water, Vancouver Island and its mountains; and to the distant right, Savary Island. Not only is the setting spectacular, these bluffs have become a source of fascination, a place to hike, be in nature, record the complex of living things, and reveal it to others.

If you have never hiked or spent time on the Bluffs, they can best be seen from our ferries: leaving or returning to Powell River from Texada or Vancouver Island. Facing the mill owned by Catalyst, to its left: rocky bluffs descend to the shoreline and continue toward Sliammon, but only as far as Schoenfeld Creek, well before Gibson’s Beach. Not only are the Bluffs part of Powell River’s landscape, they are an ecosystem, as I understand it, of some importance.

After five years of researching the plants of the area, including the last two years with photographer Rod Innes, I have now entered an inventory of these plants in the Powell River Museum, while Rod has submitted close to 300 photos to the UBC website e-flora BC, receiving positive responses from botanists there. With three public slide shows (with commentary) in the last year or so, I have tried to call attention to the rich biodiversity of the Wildwood Bluffs. I am convinced this part of our local biosphere is well worthy of conservation.

Mature Douglas firs and arbutus nestle between and around the Bluffs. This relatively small zone is a habitat for at least eight species of terrestrial orchids including some localized large colonies of two infrequent species of rein orchids: the tall rein orchid and the royal rein orchid. Two infrequent fern species have formed significant colonies on the bluffs (a mere 65 million years of evolution!). They don’t occur at higher elevations–only in a very narrow range along the Georgia Strait. The beautiful goldenback fern and the hardy Indian’s Dream fern call this place home.

Indeed, there are even more rare plants. I could go on in detail but you get the picture.
Moving about in nature has given me many things including understanding, reverence, and deep feelings about the place where we live. This gem, this pearl, our landscape and seascape, I call Home in a large sense. A grand view of earth, forest, ocean, and sky. A sense of time and history, the layers beginning with the awareness that these bluffs are traditional Sliammon lands called T’ees Kwat. That the plant life here (and everything else) took millions of years to become what we behold in the present.

That it can be taken away and used for other purposes in a very short time.
Our “kinship” with one another as well as all other life forms is food for thought in these times. I have found some strong metaphors in B.C. ethnobotanist Nancy J. Turner’s book Earth’s Blanket, of what she calls “a representation of a cultural belief, a sanction against destroying culturally and ecologically important species and habitats.” (She gave a lecture at Malaspina University-College here last January.) It runs like this: “Flowers are the valuables of the earth or mountains and if they are plucked ruthlessly the earth sorrows or cries.” And then, “Flowers, plants and grass, especially the latter, are the covering or blanket of the earth. If too much plucked or ruthlessly destroyed [the] earth [is] sorry and weeps. It rains or is angry and makes rain, fog & bad weather.”

These quotes were recorded by ethnographer James Teit amomg the Nlaka’pumx or Thompson First Nation in the 1890s.

Finally, in the foreword to Anthony Huxley’s book Green Inheritance: saving the plants of the world, is an appeal: “The aim of the book is to show, before it is too late, just how rewarding our green inheritance is to mankind–to demonstrate the wonder and worth of plants, and their great potential, to explain why they cannot take any more punishment, and to point out how those that remain can be saved. It underlines the need to save these plants because each plant that becomes extinct represents a loss to ourselves. Plants have fed the world and cured its ills since life began. Meanwhile we have been destroying their principal habitats at a rapid rate.”

The above two books are a great read and can be found in the Powell River Library.

The Wildwood Bluffs are included in Area 1 which the BC Agricultural Land Commission ruled this September not to be removed from the Agriculture Land Reserve. There are forces in our community who seem to pay heed only to development and seem to pay little attention to other possibilities. In 2008, may citizens in our community help them to reconsider.