People who live on the island of Vancouver and some smaller neighboring islands have heated an application made by a non -profit organization to use BC Crown Land for Campings while they are on trips in kayak.
The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), which performs outdoor expeditions worldwide, is requesting to renew and expand, a license that the province says that it has held since 2006.
The application is to allow Nols Acampe in 77 locations while leading a kayak trip from eight to 10 people from Washington to Alaska next summer. Most locations, ranging from 0.3-4.6 hectares, are in and around the island of Vancouver.
Publications on the application have emerged in groups based on the island of Vancouver on social networks, including Facebook and Reddit, causing hundreds of comments, many of the people concerned with an American company that obtain access to Canadian lands.
Karen McCarthy, who lives in Esquimalt, near Victoria, BC, told CBC News that he worried when he saw a community’s Facebook post on the application.
“He simply lifted some red flags for me when I saw him,” McCarthy said.
She said that the amount of locations worried her, just like the concerns she read of others that there was not enough consultation with the communities and the first nations that are close to the sites.
McCarthy said, regardless of whether the applicant has been operating in the province during the last decades, Canada-United States relations have changed, and perhaps that means that license considerations should also be different.
“The comments of the State 51 and the threats to our economic sovereignty and our sovereignty, it simply does not feel like a time to allow US companies to cross our nature,” he said.
Some comment online expressed concern about specific sites on the list. Others mention that Nols is an accredited organization that has worked for a long time in BC, and is known for responsible desert practices such as “not leaving a trace.”
Fears about military use and permanent structures
Many of the online publications and comments also reflect confusion about the nature of the license, which can be used for military purposes, for example, or that NOLS will build facilities in each of the 77 sites.
While the NOLS website shows that it offers courses for military members, a spokesman said that the trip that plans next summer would be for school students and “not military or military training.”
Rich Majerus, vice president of Expeditions in Nols, said in a statement sent by email that the company has directed trips along the BC coast since the mid -1990s.
“The waters around Vancouver have been an area that Nols has loved and appreciated for decades,” said Majerus.
He said that the 77 campsites will not be used, but the company requests licenses for all in case they need to make unplanned stops due to the weather or other emergencies.
The application also establishes that structures will not be built.
The Ministry of Water, Lands and Resources of BC of Administration, said that licenses provide applicants with the right to use the crown land for commercial purposes, but do not give applicants exclusive access to land, which means that the public can still use it.
Licenses are typically for 10 years and cost $ 850 per year plus $ 1 per day when the client uses the land.
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“Outdoor and adventure tourism plays an important role in the BC economy,” the ministry said in a written statement.
“The BC government encourages people and companies around the world to spend and invest in sustainable eco-tourism that uses the splendor of our province so that they are good for our economy and for the environment.”
Mike Willie, a hereditary chief of the Kwikwasut’inuxw nation, agrees that outdoor tourism is important, but believes that the premises should be given.
“I feel that we should keep our sites for our local people, not native and the first nations, before starting to look at external interests,” said Willie, owner of an outdoor tour company on the island of North Vancouver.
He is also worried not to hear about the application until he saw people talk about her online, since some of the sites are in the traditional territory of her nation.
The Ministry said it is in the early stages of commitment to the first nations.
The application is open for public comments until October 5. After that, the ministry said “will continue to review the application as resource permits.”
That includes looking at forest fires, pollution and other risks.
