SKABC’s first year of official stewardship of the Howe Sound Marine Trails campsites reached a major milestone this past month when the last of the bear-proof boxes was installed. There is now safe storage for food at all of the sites.
Nick Heath led this effort of many months to source the boxes, repaint them (dark green), develop a reasonably fool-proof locking system, provide inserts and stickers on box use and LNT, and then both deliver and then affix these boxes to the ground such that no one, including even a bear, could easily move or damage them. He had help in all of this from a dozen SKABC volunteers. Funding was through BC Marine Trails from the Trans Canada Trails Foundation.
So now Howe Sound is safe for the bears, so let’s all go out an enjoy these sites. During the delivery and installation, Nick met several campers throughly enjoying a new free wilderness camping opportunity close to Vancouver.
We enjoyed Tantulus so much last week, the bear box was a much needed addition that is critical for groups.
Now I am considering next time visiting a campsite to bring a 5 gallon pail, wood toilet seat, toilet arrow sign and some tools to make a movable loo. Maybe we could discuss sometime at a upcoming meeting. Due to the gov’t hands being tied by cost/enviro regulations perhaps there are some simple ways we could keep people away from going immediately upstream of the water sources.
thank you Nick! you are most dedicated member i know to maintaining these sites!