Qualla: MacMillan Provincial Park

MacMillan Provincial Park: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lesbardd, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name came first, before the park, before the protection. Sometime in the late 1920s, the Governor General of Canada, Viscount Willingdon, reportedly looked up at the towering Douglas firs along Highway 4 on Vancouver Island and called the place Cathedral Grove. The name stuck, appearing in correspondence to the provincial government and spreading by word of mouth among tourists who already treated the ancient trees as a pilgrimage site. What nobody could have guessed was that it would take nearly two more decades of public pressure, petitions, and political maneuvering before these trees gained any legal protection at all.

Image: Lesbardd | CC BY-SA 4.0

MacMillan Provincial Park: The Industrialist's Gift

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aaron Carlson from Menomonie, WI, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. H.R. MacMillan was not an obvious savior for old-growth forest. British Columbia's first chief forester had become one of the province's most powerful logging industrialists, heading the H.R. MacMillan Export Company, which later became MacMillan Bloedel. For years, he refused pu...

Image: Aaron Carlson from Menomonie, WI, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

MacMillan Provincial Park: Walking Among Giants

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kevstan, CC BY-SA 3.0. The 301-hectare park straddles Highway 4 between Qualicum Beach and Port Alberni, nestled on the western shore of Cameron Lake where the Cameron River fans into a broad delta. The ancient firs within the 157-hectare Cathedral Grove stand are immense, their trunks wider than cars,...

Image: Kevstan | CC BY-SA 3.0

MacMillan Provincial Park: When the Wind Came

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kevstan, CC BY-SA 3.0. Protecting old-growth forest from logging is only part of the challenge. Upstream logging throughout the late 20th century left the valley increasingly vulnerable to natural forces. In 1990, extreme runoff from a tropical storm caused extensive flooding and streambank erosion alo...

Image: Kevstan | CC BY-SA 3.0

MacMillan Provincial Park: A Cathedral Without a Parking Lot

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Bonser, CC BY-SA 3.0. For decades, visitors simply pulled off Highway 4 and parked along both sides of the narrow road near the Cameron River bridge. Tour buses, cars, and loaded logging trucks shared the same stretch of pavement, creating conditions that by the 1990s were judged genuinely dangerous. ...

Image: Dave Bonser | CC BY-SA 3.0