Young Life (a Christian youth ministry) owns most of the land around there. I wonder if they made the 2.3 million. Google Malibu Club.
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Bravo to all those souls who donated to this cause.
My mother from Oregon in her youth in the late 40s took a trip up to Princess Louisa Inlet. The pristine beauty of the place never left her and I heard of her journey several times over the course of my lifetime -of the utter beauty of this place.
I now live in BC and still have not been there. I had no idea potential loggers were interested in purchasing land there. This article is the first I’ve heard of the threat to this pristine paradise. I am sooooo glad that so many people came together to purchase the land and preserve another beautiful forest under threat.
Thank you NYT for publishing this story. We need more people to step up and help save the planet for future generations.
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It's great that they were able to do this, but in my mind it represents a fundamental failure of government. Government is the ultimate "crowd-sourced" entity and yet, despite the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars paid into it, there was no effort or interest to secure this land. And that is true over and over. That governments continue to prioritize special interest, private individuals and corporations over the broader population should be a source of ongoing shame and outrage.
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Wonderful story, thank you.
I needed that.
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Inspiring. Restores hope that people care about the environment over $.
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My great grandparents were Canadians and grandparents were born in Canada. With the rate our current administration is despoiling the US environment any chance my family can retroactively claim citizenship up there?
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One of the most beautiful and peaceful places on the planet. That the Canadian people would dig into their pockets to save it for future generation is a tribute to their foresight and concern for the world’s shrinking number of “ wild places.”
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If land ownership could be sorted out, we could have more of these in the Amazon.
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Good Job. A win for the good guys.
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Thank you to all involved. This is not simply a west-coast good, a Canadian good, a North American good. It is an Earth-wide good. From your fellow Earthling, thank you.
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Thank-you to the students at Cambridge Elementary School and all those that saved this amazing place. We hope to take advantage of your work and generosity to visit, spend our tourist dollars and leave again as unspoiled as it is now. Meanwhile in the US, Trump and the GOP are busy despoiling every environmental regulation, national parks, and refuges. Absolutely despicable.
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Our single payer comprehensive coverage seems to apply to trees. Who knew? #BravoCrowdSourcing
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What a great story! We need more stories about great people doing great things.
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When I was in my early teens, we took a trip up the Sunshine Coast to to Princess Louisa Inlet in our boat, and over 50 years later I can clearly remember the exquisite unspoilt beauty of the area. Those who live up there have always been fiercely protective of it, and I'm delighted that it has been preserved for future generations to enjoy.
The forest industry in BC is in trouble, with mills shutting down or reducing output due to recent wildfires and the pine beetle infestation and does need areas to log, but places like this are simply irreplaceable.
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Please more good news stories like this!
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I sincerely thank those who saved this place, as will many, many future generations.
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@CitizenJ
I visited Princess Louisa during the year I lived in Vancouver and it is absolutely stunning. I hope preservation continues north into the remainder of BC, since it is a unique legacy for nature and people -- logging would be a crime. I also hope that others come to bat in the future, including government agencies and NGOs, so it doesn't depend on crowdsourcing.
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Sign me up, where and when do we start saving our planet earth, bc we have no leadership who's doing it. Let's start with the Arctic Wilderness.
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I was born on the Sunshine Coast, and have visited several places around there, but have never heard of this spot. This story brought tears to my eyes, but also makes me think this sets a frightening precedent. Government can just do nothing and wait for citizens to pay if there is the will. If not, go ahead developers!! The BC Government absolutely should have done the right thing here and paid the $3 million. A wonderful story of what people can accomplish together and an all too common one of government failing to step up.
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@Julia Longpre
I'm surprised that someone within a stone's throw of Egmont, the launch point into the sound, would not be aware of this feature.
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In 1976 I sailed from San Diego to the NW, and during that summer I went into the inlet. It had been recommended to me and it lived up to it's billing. Such a spectacular place! Spent a few days there, just enjoying the scenery. My father, who lived in Seattle, was with me and his comment after listening to the powerful roar of the falls for a day or so, commented that, "anyone who would name these falls Chatterbox, would have a cabin named Bide-A-Wee". Now, I fear that the place might be over touristed because of the publicity.
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I applaud the crowdfunding effort, the friction involved in generating the funding may dampen enthusiasm for future preservation efforts.
Why didn't the BC provincial government simply purchase the parcel outright? $3M CAD is surely just a drop in the bucket. Our municipal government, which serves a population much smaller than 10,000, regularly invests far more in protecting a lot smaller parcels from development, although usually due to citizen pressure.
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On the Oregon coast, industrial loggers are so abusive they actually change the shape of our coastal hills.
Trees are not only clear cut, but pesticides are sprayed by helicopter which kill all of the normal understory plants that keep moisture in the soil and provide forage for forest animals. What's left is a ghost of what was: Pencil thin trees that are only green at the very top, and silence replaces the sounds of birds and other creatures.
A scientific study of a major Oregon fire here showed that these industrial tree farms burn thirty percent hotter than more diverse forests.
I'm so glad that these children and public-good organization were able to raise $2.3 million to save a small, iconic stretch of land.
Further south, we're finding that environmental protection rollbacks and new ways of cutting ever-steeper sections of forest have devastated huge sections of our coastal slopes, leaving nothing but monoculture seedlings in dry soil laced with chemicals.
Next time you see an industrial "replanted 2016" sign, stop to consider what wasn't replanted, what was poisoned, and what's happening to our drinking water and our wildlife. With climate change, we may not be able to recapture the moisture a healthy forest holds. Going forward, there may not be the conditions to get those forests back.
With super-fires everywhere in the West, I don't know why we'd want to make them worse.
Oh yeah... money.
Thank you to these children. We should all be doing our part.
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@C. Whiting
You are absolutely right. Many people outside of Oregon believe the state is filled with environmentalists and the state is all 'green'. Well, people who value nature certainly exist here, but the logging industry is ravenous, using forest fires as fodder to give false arguments why logging protects rather than destroys. Environmentalists, or even simply the people on the coast with cancer from the herbicides, face a nearly impossible battle to stop the destructive and toxic logging practices. The soil poisoned with herbicides will not even grow Douglas firs after a few cycles and we will have a desert.
I give nature hikes to kids near Eugene. When I teach them that real forests have various plant types, plants of different ages and diverse tree species, I point out that the monoculture stands of Douglas Fir trees they see on their way to the ocean are not forests, they are plantations.
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@C. Whiting
I grew up in Oregon and over my 58 years I have watched as the forests become more and more scarce and the coastal mountains are now a solid patchwork of mostly clear cuts, where once beautiful for-lines highways were the norm with solid forests. I was in Tillamook this summer and very depressed by what I saw. Tom McCall is rolling in his grave I am sure.
I am appalled at what you describe as the techniques of using pesticides and herbicides to try and control the forest floor.
And you wonder why the earth is dying and the forests are burning. Pray for the future generations as there may be very little left for them at the hands of the almighty dollar and greed with no foresight. Only $$$ in the pockets of the ignorant.
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Fifth graders have set a great example for us to follow. At the rate Trump is going, we'd be lucky to have anything pristine left. Activism is the answer.
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This is not a lone example of activism to protect land in British Columbia. The Cumberland Community Forest Society is comprised of a group of residents in the Village of Cumberland on Vancouver Island dedicated to purchase local forests for recreational and aesthetic purposes. The Society’s mandate is to purchase as much as 650 acres of forest on Cumberland’s southwest boundary from The Hancock Timber Resource Group. In 2005 the first and second parcels of forest, totaling over 150 acres, were purchased for approximately one million dollars. They were given to the Village of Cumberland with stringent conservation covenants attached to them, and they now form a wilderness park called the Cumberland Community Forest. These acquisitions represent an enormous community achievement from which future generations will derive much benefit. Preserving this part of the forest will continue to bring visitors to the historic village of Cumberland, adding to it’s beauty, and creating a great legacy for future citizens. This forest has a huge network of hiking and biking trails that attract mountain bikers from around the world.
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Just when you think there is no hope for the human race, a story arrives that warms and cheers all our hearts! To all the organizations and individuals who had a part is saving this part of paradise -- thank you, thank you, thank you!
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I live in B.C. and was not aware of this beautiful place. It is now on my bucket list. I am so proud and happy to hear of the many people who stepped up to preserve it.
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Princess Louisa Inlet is absolutely stunning! The mountains rise straight up from the sea, reminding you of the fjords of Norway.
So glad the park service was able to save it from development. I remember boating up the inlet as a child, and I hope to take my own kids there next summer.
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