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I have been shaped by logging roads.
That’s literally true. I’ve been trail running most of my life, and most of those trails were once logging roads.
I grew up on Vancouver Island, where the entire southeast Island has been logged since the mid-19th century. As a consequence, there are few places not reachable by a one-track dirt road.
For outdoor recreation, it’s a paradise. Without that accessibility, we would not have been able to experience many of the rivers, mountains and lakes that became our playgrounds – even as we drove through clearcuts that sometimes ran to the horizons. A paradise, but an ironic one.
In my teens I took up trail running – so much better and forgiving than asphalt and concrete, more challenging than grass and flat ground. I still run mostly on trails, now the network through Stanley Park. These too once were logging roads; there is very little wilderness.
So I’m intimately familiar with the impact of resource exploitation in this province. I’ve seen how much was left in ecological ruin, how much recovered, and how few places we’ve left alone. I know that our prosperity has been dependent on the creaming of nature’s abundance – and still informs its politics. I know that we in the city are vigilant and often vicious in protecting the green backdrop that defines us, even as we are ignorant and dismissive of those whose jobs are dependent on cutting it down somewhere out of our sight.
I know how my way of life has been blessed by being in this place, and I’m grateful I am for it. I’m aware of how our wealth was achieved and what our way of life demands, and how we both abuse and protect the environment we depend on. And I hope, and would be deeply grateful, if we could find our way to reconciliation.
Canadian Veggie prefers to run on paved trails, and I understand that I should get a 4×4 truck to enjoy dirt trails if I like…
yes a 4×4 truck, because here is the strange (and disapointing) thing in BC: While Vancouver is buzzy at paving its parks, enjoying the BC wilderness requires a high clearance AWD…even in close proximity of Vancouver.
BC tourism selling alpine hiking experience such as Brandywine meadows (near Whistler)…but the hike is almost unaccessible with a normal vehicle (the logging road is very rough)…and not at all with a rental vehicle (normally rental car can’t use log roads). That is an example among many others making a tourist experience disappointing (in the meantimes, a ridiculously oversized highway leads to the depressing Callaghan olympic basis).
So a bit less pavememt here, and a bit more there to increase outdoor accesibility could not hurt.
See, I am not all against Asphalt
I grew up on Vancouver Island near Qualicum Beach and used those logging roads as well. I was a walker not a runner, but maybe running was the sensible choice. Once a bear popped up from the salal right in front of me. The bear was as surprised as I was. We both retired from the situation.