Logging, Oil Drilling Decisions Loom for ‘Canadian Galapagos’

Among environmentalists, the South Moresby archipelago is known as “the Canadian Galapagos”--an ecological wonderland 80 miles off the northern Pacific coast of Canada.

To economists, South Moresby’s virgin rain forests and oil-rich waters offer a billion-dollar bonanza.

But to the Haida Indians, who have thrived off its rich marine life for 10,000 years, the 560-square miles of wilderness is sacred ground.

The 138 islands that provide the southern tail of the Queen Charlotte Islands largely escaped the ravages of the last ice age, providing a haven for a multitude of rare wildlife.

Many of South Moresby’s plants and animals are found nowhere else on the planet, attracting scientists to the region for the same reason that Charles Darwin went to the Galapagos a century ago.

Big Black Bear

It is home to the world’s largest black bear and highest concentration of peregrine falcons. Its bald eagle population is rivaled only by Alaska’s Admiralty Island. Its shorelines support the Pacific Coast’s largest sea lion rookery, 11 species of whale and some of the richest salmon grounds in the world.

That all makes South Moresby a political hot potato. Neither the central Canadian government nor the province of British Columbia wants to take responsibility for destroying what many people consider paradise.

So for the last decade, South Moresby’s fate has been buried under studies, commissions and inquiries.

Now, however, politicians realize that they can stall no more. A decision must be made soon on whether to allow logging to go ahead in South Moresby, and a final report on the feasibility of offshore oil drilling is expected in November.

Although much of the valuable first growth forests have been harvested from the northern Charlottes, South Moresby possesses some of the oldest and largest red cedars in the world.

Western Forest Products Ltd., the Vancouver-based firm holding the logging rights to South Moresby, predicts the loss of more than $1 billion and about 1,000 jobs over the next 40 years if logging is halted.

Goddess of Chaos

Geologists believe that 9.5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 315 million barrels of oil lie in the Hecate Strait separating the Queen Charlottes from the mainland. The strait, named after the Greek goddess of darkness and the underworld, is raked by the highest wind speeds in Canada and the seabed is the most earthquake-prone in North America.

The 6,000 inhabitants of the Queen Charlotte Islands don’t have to look far to see the irreparable damage caused by clear-cut logging.

“Isn’t it ugly?” Vicki Sexsmith said, scanning the shaved mountain slopes around the fishing village of Queen Charlotte City, one of five tiny communities on the north Charlottes.

Sexsmith, an employment councilor who has lived on the islands 18 years, is president of the 1,500-member Islands Protection Society (IPS), which has spearheaded the movement to have South Moresby named a national park.

When asked if the society is winning its 10-year battle, Sexsmith shrugged.

“The environment minister is coming up here . . . and he seems positive. Before that we had (former Prime Minister) John Turner and half the provincial Cabinet,” she says. “They can’t ignore the issue anymore.”

Sexsmith would like to see the logging industry replaced by a small, exclusive tourist industry.

High-Price Tours

Daily airline service is available from Vancouver to the airport near Queen Charlotte City, but South Moresby can be reached only by chartered boat or aircraft, keeping a few operators busy supplying high-price tours and camping expeditions.

A decade ago, tourism was almost non-existent, but in 1982 about 800 tourists visited South Moresby, generating about $1 million and 50 seasonal jobs.

Although the figures are steadily rising, Queen Charlotte City is far from a resort. The village’s two run-down motels are often filled with visiting fishermen looking for a bath and a shave before heading down to the only tavern.

John’s Chinese restaurant holds a monopoly on dinner, and Margaret’s Cafe is the only place that serves breakfast. If the salmon fleet happens to be in, there is a good chance that both restaurants will be sold out of food.

“We’re not looking for your typical tourist,” Sexsmith explains. “The people who want to see South Moresby are looking for nature. They’re going to be prepared to rough it a bit.”

In the last 22 years, R.L. Smith has worked for just about every logging outfit in the area. Since 1978 he has published a newsletter boldly titled The Redneck News “as a tool” to protect jobs.

“Ding-a-ling tree huggers” is Smith’ favorite term for environmentalists.

“Jacques Cousteau, there’s another ding-a-ling,” Smith says. “This guy hasn’t even been to the damn Queen Charlottes. It’s a great emotional issue stirred up to put money in the pot of the professional environmentalists.”

Habitats Protected

In turn, the environmentalists call Smith a “mouthpiece” for Western Forest Products.

Smith states the company’s case well. He notes that only 25% of South Moresby contains marketable timber, and the company won’t be able to cut even that much because of regulations protecting salmon habitats, predator birds and Indian heritage sites.

“There’s room for a lot of different industry on South Moresby, not just park wilderness,” Smith declares.

Most of the active environmentalists are relative newcomers to the Queen Charlottes. Many of them arrived as hippies during the late 1960s and early 1970s when the “back to Earth” movement was at its peak.

“I stopped here in 1967 on the way to China,” said David Phillips, 45. “I never got any further.”

Phillips has risen to respectability on the islands as a design consultant and in 1983 was named president of the Queen Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.

He admits that many of the islanders are divided over whether to expand logging into South Moresby, “but it’s not as bad as the big city media like to paint it. We’re all friends on these islands. It’s too small a place to have enemies.”

Smith agrees. He can remember when the first hippies began arriving, many running from the U.S. draft.

‘Bundle or Rags’

“You’d see this bundle of rags walking around in the damn rain, freezing,” Smith recalls. “Whether they stunk or not you’d put ‘em in the truck and bring ‘em home for a cup of hot tea. I got along fine with ‘em until they started picking on the loggers.”

Oil drilling is just as emotional an issue as logging.

Island fishermen spend their lives battling the wild seas of the Hecate Strait, and to them it seems impossible to drill for oil without a major spill or blowout that could destroy valuable salmon grounds.

Chevron experts have been touring the islands with a government environmental panel, attempting to convince the islanders that their fishing grounds are safe. But fishermen recall the giant wave that sank the oil rig Ocean Ranger off Canada’s east coast three years ago, killing all 87 aboard.

A few people have traveled a long way to make themselves heard.

“I hope the panel doesn’t think that we are dreamers,” says Susan Suna, a 34-year-old Swiss immigrant who has lived in the bush alone for four years.

“The dreamers are the ones who feel that we can do offshore drilling without harming our environment. I’m speaking for my friends the seals, the raccoons and all the waterfowl, because they cannot come here themselves.”