What I’ve found on remote logging roads speak volumes about our respect for public lands
I’ve long known that unusual experiences await those tempted down remote dead-end roads. But nothing prepared me for the assortment of bizarre, ghoulish and even criminal artifacts I encountered on the logging roads of the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island.
One winter, I spotted a man in broad daylight sharpening his chainsaw at the back of a rental U-Haul truck, which, I later learned, is a popular vehicle among criminals. I drove past the man, then called RCMP and municipal bylaw enforcement officers. Both showed up within about 15 minutes. I later learned that the man admitted he intended to harvest wood, but hadn’t actually begun to cut. He got off with a warning.
Elsewhere, I found broken glass, car batteries, clothes, pallets, bicycles, a cement mixer, a ubiquity of motor vehicle parts, including seat springs, tires, rims … and on and on. Shotgun shells from target practice formed a colourful if lumpy ground cover, even next to municipal signs that forbade the activity.
When I drive these logging backroads, I feel I am part of a culture, an unspoken brother and sisterhood. People are friendly, quick to exchange information on directions and road conditions, and helpful if you get in trouble. They don’t seem like bad people, and yet some of them are doing bad things in the backcountry.
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