Lights and Magic at the ChristmasTree Lawn

Dear Bowen,

As another sparkling season of lights and making merry closes Bowen Children’s Centre and Family Place would like to thank everyone who came together to bring beauty and light to our Snug Cove once more

It takes a lot to make this fundraiser/event happen and so Family Place would like to celebrate those who made this “Festival of Trees” magical:

• Lyndsay, the Manager at the Caufeild Safeway and Naomi, the Manager of Save-On-Foods at Pemberton Plaza got us the best deal on the trees

• Thanks to Anna and her amazing staff at the Bowen Building Centre without research report, “Measuring and Managing Park Carrying Capacity,” for a sobering review of Case Study attempts to manage transportation and parking at popular parks

Concentrating visitors exacerbates the damaging human footprint and erodes visitor satisfaction. Consider your last visit to Shannon Falls or the Sea to Sky Gondola trails and then consider a comparable density on Bowen destinations

With that in mind, I have been conjuring ideas around decentralization. What about a swap that sends campers to Crippen and restores the Cape for wildlife and “tread lightly” explorers? Davies Orchard comes to mind. Early island residents recall that “the orchard was jam full of trees and tents” Grievously neglected by Metro Parks, “Davies Orchard is the only extant steamship-era holiday cottage precinct that remains (minimally) intact and accessible in British Columbia” (CitizenLab) Perhaps it deserves to be a living heritage site replete with campers and cottagers

There are other forest and meadow spots within Crippen Park that could shelter small, hike-in campsites that would be eminently accessible to foot passengers and close to the restaurants, shops and entertainment that drives the Bowen tourism economy. Metro Parks could diversify by putting their lens on paddle access This would complement a campsite at Apodaca Provincial Park that was zoned for six wilderness campsites in the 1980s and has been given new energy by the Sea to Sky Marine Trail.

Forty million dollars is a huge and rare investment for park development on Bowen Island. I don’t suppose any of us can really know how a new park at the Cape might change us but I hope that we will give our best intelligent contribution to the process

- Betty Morton