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B.C. considers closing North Island park amid fears 'hippie' gathering will cause chaos, damage

Parks and forests ministry staff, with an RCMP officer, helicoptered into Raft Cove Provincial Park Thursday to monitor early arrivals at the World Rainbow Gathering amid talk that the North Island park might need to be closed.
Raft Cove
Raft Cove Provincial Park.

Parks and forests ministry staff, with an RCMP officer, helicoptered into Raft Cove Provincial Park Thursday to monitor early arrivals at the World Rainbow Gathering amid talk that the North Island park might need to be closed.

The counter-culture gathering — with about 2,000 people expected over the next month — at the remote park near Cape Scott, took police, First Nations and the province by surprise this week and has sparked a Facebook site, with 1,100 followers, asking that the park be closed down for the event.

“B.C. Parks is currently exploring all options to ensure concerns are addressed, up to and including closing the park,” said an Environment Ministry spokesman.

Primary concerns are public health, safety and protecting the natural environment, he said.

About 70 people are currently at the park.

RCMP spokesman Cpl. Darren Lagen said the RCMP officer was only gathering information. “We’re not dealing with a police situation at the moment.”

Raft Cove detailed

Western Forest Products, with tenure on Crown land surrounding the 787-hectare park, is concerned about fire risks and Rainbow campers travelling through logging sites. “When you have active logging, increased traffic on the road and inexperienced people in the back country, there are safety hazards,” said Western spokeswoman Makenzie Leine.

There is already increased traffic and employees and contractors have been warned to take extra care, Leine said.

Rainbow Gatherings, based on ideals of peace, love and sustainability, have been held around the world since 1972. While they have been successful in the U.S., where areas have been left as they were found, gatherings near Bamfield and Gold River, about a decade ago, left mountains of garbage and human waste, local residents say.

It would be better for North Island residents and surfers to do without the park this summer than have it destroyed, said Terry Eissfeldt, who started the online protest.

Everyone is waiting for B.C. Parks to take action, she said. “Most people here don’t want to be anything except law-abiding citizens, but, if something significant doesn’t happen, I think something will come up from the grassroots.”

Cumberland resident Neil Borecky, a Mount Cain Alpine Park Society director who surfs at Raft Cove, said he unwittingly picked up a Rainbow Family scout from California this week and that increased his concerns about people being unprepared. “He was on a gravel road, near dark, with no food and water, in the highest-density cougar country and he was completely lost,” Borecky said.

Borecky, who saw the garbage left near Bamfield, hopes authorities will shut down the area. “Or a few of us might be heading up to form a blockade,” he said.

Milo Hajska, owner of Holberg Store, has watched about 100 people come through the tiny community near the park in the last few days. “They seem to be very well-behaved people. They are not buying too much booze.”

Many are from Quebec and California, he said. “They have their cars packed up to [the] roof and stuff on top of the roof. I hope there’s no rain, I don’t think they’ve got tents.”

Stuart Meade of Vernon hopes to attend the gathering. “I went to one 30-some years ago in south-central Oregon and it was almost a utopian experience,” he said. “What you took in, you took out. Everyone was naked and there was no violence and no rowdyism.”

Meade said he often thinks about the experience. “And I am about as far away from the hippie experience as you can get. I drive a long-distance transport truck.”

jlavoie@timescolonist.com