Qualla: Strathcona Provincial Park

Strathcona Provincial Park: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1988, sixty-three people were arrested on a blockade in the mountains of Vancouver Island. They were not protesting a new development or a pipeline. They were trying to stop the provincial government from carving up British Columbia's oldest provincial park -- a park that had been established in 1911 and had been losing ground to logging and mining ever since. The Friends of Strathcona, as the protesters called themselves, drew enough media attention to force an independent review. The result was the Strathcona Park Master Plan, which designated most of the park's 2,458 square kilometers as a conservation area. The park had been fighting for its own existence for decades. It had not always won.

Strathcona Provincial Park: An Island's Wild Interior

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Strathcona Provincial Park occupies the mountainous heart of Vancouver Island, stretching between the communities of Gold River to the west and Campbell River to the east. Within its boundaries rise the island's highest peaks: the Golden Hinde at 2,195 meters, Elkhorn Mountain at...

Strathcona Provincial Park: Mowachaht Territory to Crown Land

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

This land is the traditional territory of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht peoples. Commander John Buttle first explored the area for Europeans in the 1860s, and in the decades that followed, the region attracted surveyors, prospectors, and the attention of politicians. Reverend Willi...

Strathcona Provincial Park: The Park That Kept Shrinking

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

From the beginning, Strathcona Park was treated as much as a resource reserve as a wilderness sanctuary. Mineral claims were staked within its boundaries as early as 1911. In 1939, mining and logging were formally permitted, and the Myra Falls Mine opened in 1959, producing zinc,...

Strathcona Provincial Park: Wilderness That Persists

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Despite its complicated history, Strathcona Park remains an extraordinary landscape. Its subalpine ecosystems support western redcedar, Douglas fir, and mountain hemlock. Roosevelt elk, Vancouver Island marmots -- one of the world's most endangered mammals -- Vancouver Island wol...