EDITORIAL · TREAD LIGHTLY ONLINE

Why it’s a bad idea to ask or name a location online in the NDP’s BC. Especially in front of a hundred thousand people.

Someone posts a photograph of a favourite spot, and someone asks where it is. Nobody asking or answering is doing anything wrong. But in British Columbia a place that becomes known does not get a ranger, a budget or a plan. It gets an instrument — and the Province has written that chain down itself, twice, in its own documents. Show the place. Do not name it.Tread lightly online.

Backcountry Coalition · 6 October 2026 Email

Someone posts a photograph of a favourite spot, and someone asks where it is.⁰¹ The person who posts it is proud of a good day. The person who asks is being friendly. What happens next is not their doing, and it is not a story about litter, or bears, or bad manners. It is a story about a file being opened.

This piece asks one thing of the reader, and it spends the rest of its length earning the right to ask it. Show the place. Do not name it. Post the photograph, the fire, the water, the ridge behind it. Do not post the name, the coordinates, the road number or the kilometre mark. Not because the next visitor will wreck it — but because the government reads too, and in British Columbia the government’s answer to a place it has learned the location of is to pursue closure.

That is a strong claim, so it is made here the only way it can honestly be made: out of the Province’s own documents — its statutes, its closure notices, its regulations and its own recreation records. Two government reports set out the chain from a shared location to a locked gate, in that order, in the Province’s own sentences. Six places show the chain completed. And the statute book shows why, once a place is known, nothing stands between it and an official with a pen.

Begin with what has already happened, and where.

Section 01Six British Columbia places already closed or rationed, and what access is left

Six British Columbia places carry the whole argument, and each one is a real location with a file behind it. Four of them are closed. Two are still open but rationed. Their positions on the map below come from the Province’s own records: the four recreation sites from the public recreation database, and Joffre Lakes Park and Molybdenite Creek from the provincial gazetteer of geographic names.

What to notice is not only where they are, but how ordinary they are. None is a wilderness objective requiring a week and a rope. They are a hot spring at the end of a forest road, an alpine drive, a chain of lakes off Highway 99, a stand of old cedar behind a fishing village, a spring in a river valley, and a viewpoint above a lake. They are precisely the places a photograph gets posted from.

Figure 01Recreation Sites and Trails BC records REC202717, REC0023, REC202159 and REC6851 · BC Geographical Names

Six places, all on the south coast and the Sea to Sky corridor. Four are closed: Múm̓leqs / Keyhole Falls hot springs north of Pemberton; Molybdenite Creek, in the Texas Creek drainage roughly twenty kilometres south of Lillooet; T’l’oqwxwat / Avatar Grove, up the Gordon River from Port Renfrew; and Bonanza Bluffs above Shawnigan Lake. Two are restricted rather than closed: Pipi7íyekw / Joffre Lakes Park, managed to 500 visitors a day, and Sloquet Hot Springs, open but inside a spring motor vehicle closure. Towns are marked for orientation only. Source: Positions from Recreation Sites and Trails BC records REC202717, REC0023, REC202159 and REC6851, and from BC Geographical Names for Joffre Lakes Park and Molybdenite Creek.⁰²

Three of the four closures sit within seventy kilometres of one another at the head of the Lillooet River and the Duffey Lake road — the corridor that carries the most-photographed backcountry in the province. The fourth is on southern Vancouver Island, at the most publicised old-growth stand in British Columbia. These are not obscure places that quietly lapsed. They are the places that got famous.

These six are not the extent of it. They are the ones with a paper trail. They are here because each closure can be traced to an instrument with a date, a signature and a power it was made under. A place closed by a gate nobody wrote a notice for leaves nothing to cite, and there is no provincial register of recreation access withdrawn, no running total, and no requirement to publish one. The six below are what a public record makes checkable, not what a map of lost access would look like.

And not one of these six was deactivated. No bridge was pulled, no culvert lifted, no road bed pulled back to slope. The roads and the trails are still there, intact, and would carry a vehicle or a pair of boots tomorrow. What changed is a document. Access was withdrawn on paper — by notice, by regulation, by a gate, by a pass — which is why it needed no engineering, no prescription and no cost, and why it can be done to anywhere, at any time, without the works that make a closure visible on the ground.

Every one of these six places was open to anyone, without a permit, within living memory. Not one of them is today.

Section 02How much of the year you may legally be at each of the six places

“Closed” is a word that hides a great deal, so it is worth converting each of these six instruments into the one unit that cannot be argued with: days. The figure below draws a calendar year for each place and fills the portion of it during which the public may not lawfully be there, or may be there only with a permit. The dates come from the closure notices and the regulations themselves.

Look for the shape of the top three bars, and then for how little of the year is left in the others.

Figure 02Closure windows as written into the instruments themselves

A calendar year per place, with the closed portion filled. Múm̓leqs / Keyhole Falls, T’l’oqwxwat / Avatar Grove and Bonanza Bluffs are closed all 365 days. At Keyhole the standing annual closure runs 1 April to 15 November, but the road in is gated at kilometre 24 year-round and the second Notice of Rescission “does not expire,” so no part of the year is open. Molybdenite Creek is closed to motor vehicles for 230 days, 15 April to 30 November — a window created in 2009 as 15 April to 30 June and more than doubled on 24 August 2021. Sloquet Hot Springs is closed to motor vehicles for 76 days, 1 April to 15 June. Pipi7íyekw / Joffre Lakes is fully closed for 31 days — 20 to 27 June and 8 to 30 September — and requires a trail pass on a further 137, from 11 May to 25 October. Source: Keyhole Falls Public Use Closure Notice, 1 April 2018, with the Perkins Creek gate and the Notices of Rescission; Wildlife Act Motor Vehicle Prohibition Regulation, B.C. Reg. 18/2024, Schedule 1 items 62 and 66; Recreation Sites and Trails BC record REC202159; information bulletin 2026ENV0022-000507.⁰³⁰⁴⁰⁵

Three of the six are closed every day of the year. That is the first thing to take from the figure, and it is worth saying without softening: at Múm̓leqs, at T’l’oqwxwat and at Bonanza Bluffs, there is no lawful day on which a member of the public may be where they used to be able to stand.

The second thing is the direction of travel at Molybdenite Creek. The vehicle closure there began in 2009 as a narrow spring restriction running 15 April to 30 June — seventy-seven days, timed to the period when bears are on the avalanche slopes. On 24 August 2021 it was extended to 30 November.⁰⁴ The restriction did not merely persist; it grew from a tenth of the year to nearly two-thirds of it, and it grew in a single amendment.

The third is Joffre. A hundred and sixty-eight days of the year now require a document to walk a trail, and thirty-one of them are closed outright. That is the condition of the most photographed park in the province, and it is the mildest treatment on this chart.

At three of these six places the answer to “when can I go?” is: no day of any year.

Section 03Ten years of backcountry closures, and not one of them reversed

Each of those closures arrived as a separate act on a separate date, and read one at a time they look like unrelated administrative housekeeping. Counted together over a decade they are a ratchet. The figure below plots every instrument between June 2016 and September 2026 as it came into force. The unit is instruments rather than places, because one place can be closed several times over and each act has its own date and signature.

What to notice is the shape of the line. It has no downward step anywhere on it.

Figure 03Eleven instruments, June 2016 – September 2026

Restrictions in force, counted as they accumulate. Eleven instruments in ten years, rising from zero to eleven, and not one of them lifted. In order: the Keyhole Falls trail closed “until further notice” on 23 June 2016; closed again “indefinitely” on 12 May 2017; Crown land occupation permission rescinded 20 March 2018; a standing annual closure of 1 April to 15 November from 1 April 2018; Lillooet South forest service road 7977 gated at kilometre 24 year-round on 17 July 2018; Joffre Lakes day-use passes made mandatory 23 June 2021; the Molybdenite Creek vehicle closure extended to 30 November on 24 August 2021; Avatar Grove closed in 2022; a second Notice of Rescission, “effective from November 10, 2023 and does not expire,” on 10 November 2023; the Molybdenite and Sloquet closures carried into B.C. Reg. 18/2024 on 1 March 2024; and from 22 September 2026 a verified identity required to book a pass. Source: The instruments themselves, as cited through this piece.⁰⁶⁰⁷⁰⁸⁰⁹

Eleven instruments, none withdrawn. Four of them fall on one hot spring, which is the detail worth dwelling on: Múm̓leqs was closed, closed again, had its Crown land permission rescinded, was given a standing annual closure, had its road gated, and then had its permission rescinded a second time in terms that do not expire. Each step followed non-compliance with the step before it. That is what an administrative ratchet looks like from the inside — not a decision, but a sequence of them, each one small, none reversible.

Eleven restrictions in ten years. Not one of them has been lifted.

Section 04All six places: the instrument, the date, and the reason the Province gave

A chart can show that access was lost. It cannot show what was signed, by whom, under what power, and what the Province said it was doing. That is the record below: six places, each with the instrument that closed it, the date it took effect, the office that holds the pen, and the reason the Province itself put in writing.

Read down the last field of each entry. Not one of these instruments required an application, a hearing, a published set of reasons or an appeal.

Múm̓leqs — Keyhole Falls hot springs, and the road to it

Closed · gate does not expire

What happened: Trail closed “until further notice” on 23 June 2016, closed again “indefinitely” in 2017, then converted to a standing annual closure from 1 April to 15 November, every year. Permission to occupy the Crown land was rescinded on 20 March 2018. On 17 July 2018 the road itself was gated.
Instrument: Public use closure notice under the Forest Recreation Regulation s. 20(3), with the Wildlife Act s. 33.1(2) and Land Act s. 59 behind it — $115, $345 and up to $1,000. The road gate is s. 6 of the Forest Service Road Use Regulation, on the Lillooet South forest service road 7977 at kilometre 24.
Signed: District Manager, Sea to Sky Natural Resource District.
Now: A second Notice of Rescission took effect 10 November 2023 and does not expire. The gate is closed year-round.

The reason the Province gaveThe 2017 closure was made “due to increased wildlife conflicts caused by recreational users.” The gate closed the road “for public safety reasons and to minimize negative environmental impacts from unauthorized use at Meager Hotsprings.”⁰⁶⁰⁷⁰³⁰⁸

Molybdenite Creek — the Texas Creek closure

Closed to vehicles 7½ months a year

What happened: An alpine four-wheel-drive route in the Texas Creek drainage south of Lillooet, carried for years on route-sharing sites and video channels. A narrow spring restriction created in 2009 ran 15 April to 30 June. On 24 August 2021 the season was more than doubled, to 15 April–30 November.
Instrument: Wildlife Act Motor Vehicle Prohibition Regulation, B.C. Reg. 18/2024, Schedule 1 item 62, “Texas Creek”: the closure runs 15 April to 30 November in any portion of M.U. 3-16 outlined in dashed red on Map No. 1-62/23, which shows Molybdenite Creek inside the boundary. Extended by B.C. Reg. 224/2021; carried forward 1 March 2024.
Standing behind it: Sekw’el’wás (Cayoose Creek Band), St’át’imc. The 2011 St’át’imc Chiefs Council resolution on grizzly recovery. The Province directs the public to Chief Michelle Edwards rather than to a ministry office.
Now: You cannot legally drive it from mid-April to the end of November.

The reason the Province gaveGrizzly bears. “Roads are associated with increased [g]rizzly bear mortality risk, as they can put bears and humans into closer proximity.” The Stein-Nahatlatch population is rated of extreme conservation concern, at fewer than twenty animals and five breeding females.⁰⁴¹⁰

Pipi7íyekw — Joffre Lakes Park

Rationed · identity required

What happened: The park became one of the most photographed places in the province. BC Parks capped it. Since 2021 entry has required a pass, and the park is managed to roughly 500 visitors a day plus 26 tent pads. The passes are free, and free and scarce has a predictable ending: by August 2026 people were flipping Joffre day-use passes on Facebook and bots were scraping the booking service in bulk.
Instrument: BC Parks day-use pass programme, introduced as a pilot in July 2020 and retained. From 22 September 2026, booking a free pass requires an identity-verified account — a BC Services Card or a verified email address.
Now: To walk up a trail on a Saturday, a British Columbian proves their identity to a government website.

The reason the Province gaveThe passes were introduced as “a tool to manage overcrowding.” The identity requirement was introduced “to help reduce interference from digital bots and other misuse.”⁰⁵⁰⁹

And, separately, in the Nations’ own wordsThe seasonal closures from 2023 onward are an assertion of title, rights and jurisdiction by Líl̓wat Nation and N’Quatqua. Their joint statement of 20 August 2025: “For decades, the province has permitted the overuse and degradation of [Pipi7íyekw] by allowing unsustainable levels of visitation. The land was never meant to endure this degree of exploitation. It requires periods of rest and regeneration.” Kúkwpi7 Dean Nelson: “These dates were not requests… They are the Reconnection Periods that Líl̓wat requires.”¹¹

T’l’oqwxwat — Avatar Grove, Port Renfrew

Closed since 2022

What happened: Publicised in 2009 and named after a film, the grove became the best-known old-growth stand in British Columbia. The Province enlarged the old-growth management area around it to 59.4 hectares in February 2012 — and in the same bulletin removed 57.4 hectares of other old-growth areas to keep the licensee whole. Net new protection: about two hectares. Volunteers built a kilometre of boardwalk, stairs and viewing platforms. In 2018 they were barred from maintaining it. In 2022 it was closed.
Instrument: Recreation site closure by Recreation Sites and Trails BC.
Now: Record REC202159 reads Closed: “Avatar Grove (T’l’oqwxwat) Recreation Site is Closed for Public Safety and Environmental Protection.”

The reason the Province gave“We understand how popular the recreation site is and that popularity has had an impact on both the safety of the infrastructure, and on the trees that have been impacted by more and more people walking on exposed roots.”¹²¹³¹⁴

Sloquet Creek

Closed to vehicles each spring

What happened: A hot spring on Xa’xtsa territory reached by forest service road. By July 2024 it was generating two truckloads of garbage a week, and a campfire ban was imposed. A councillor put the position on the record: “At any given time, we can just turn around and shut it down.”
Instrument: Wildlife Act Motor Vehicle Prohibition Regulation, B.C. Reg. 18/2024, Schedule 1 item 66, “Sloquet Creek”: closure effective 1 April to 15 June in any portion of M.U. 2-9 outlined in dashed red on Map No. 1-66/24.
Now: Motor vehicles are prohibited inside the closure area for two and a half months every spring. The site record reads Open.

The reason givenThe vehicle closure is a wildlife instrument. The garbage, the campfire ban and the prospect of a full closure are named by the Nation as alcohol, garbage and disrespect at the site.¹⁵⁰⁴

Bonanza Bluffs, Shawnigan Lake

Closed indefinitely

What happened: A viewpoint over the Koksilah valley, maintained by its users rather than by the agency. Closed indefinitely, on a notice that carries a reason but no date.
Instrument: Recreation site closure by Recreation Sites and Trails BC, record REC6851.
Now: The record reads Closed, and the closure comment is the one place in the provincial recreation record where damage caused by how visitors behaved is named as the cause.

The reason the Province gave“Bonanza Bluffs is a user maintained recreation site that has experienced soil erosion and vegetation damage in sensitive ecosystems from off-trail motorcycle use and garbage accumulation from users.”¹⁶

Six places. Six instruments. Six different statutory sources — a recreation regulation, a wildlife regulation, a road use regulation, a land statute, a park programme and a site closure notice. There is no single door through which access is lost in British Columbia, which is exactly why it is so hard to defend: there is no single door to stand in front of.

And note what the reasons have in common. Wildlife conflict caused by recreational users. Unauthorized use. Popularity, and its impact on trees walked on by more and more people. Garbage accumulation from users. In every case but one, the Province has named the visitor as the cause — and in every case, the remedy it reached for was to remove the visitor rather than to manage the visit.

Not one of these six instruments required an application, a hearing, a published reason or an appeal.

Section 05Twice, the Province wrote down how a shared location becomes a closed gate

Everything so far establishes that access was lost. It does not establish why, and the why is the part that matters to anyone deciding what to post. The claim made here is specific: that a location becoming widely known is the first link in a chain that ends at an instrument. That claim is not an inference. It is a sequence set out, in that order, in two British Columbia government documents about the same hot spring, three years apart. Both name social media. Both describe a spike in use. Both end at a closure.

The first is a report signed in March 2018 by the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, prepared with its partners, titled Motorized Access Management: Recommendations to Protect Grizzly Bears in the Upper Lillooet River Area. Its section on the current state of recreation names the mechanism, and then names the platforms:¹⁷

Motorized Access Management · Upper Lillooet River Area · March 2018 · § 3.3.3

Public recreational activities in the planning area are substantially increasing as more people learn about opportunities to enjoy features such as trails, campsites and hot springs… Public can learn about recreation opportunities on the appropriate RSTB website, though other social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other blogs and website often share this information to a much wider audience.

That is a provincial ministry, in a signed report, recording that the distribution channel for its recreation information is Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and that the audience those platforms reach is much wider than the one its own website reaches. It is the first link in the chain, in the government’s own hand, and the Province wrote it without being asked to.

The same section records what arrived. Innergex, the hydro operator on the corridor, counted public traffic at a checkpoint at kilometre 37.5 of the Upper Lillooet forest service road over two weekends of one spring:¹⁷

716

People, in 224 vehicles, over Easter weekend — 25 to 28 March 2016.

700+

People, in 350 vehicles, over the May long weekend — 20 to 22 May 2016.

Checkpoint, on one forest service road, on two weekends of one spring.

Those are not park-gate figures from a place with a parking lot and an attendant. They are counts taken on a gravel road thirty-seven kilometres in, at a site with no staff, no water, no toilets and no management plan, whose entire management regime at that point consisted of signage and a garbage run. Then the 2018 access-management report gives the rest of it, in one continuous passage, with the closure at the end:¹⁷

Same report · § 3.3.3

Despite intensive management actions by Innergex and RSTB staff, including increased signage and garbage collecting, the hot springs and trail areas were inundated by people who disregarded appropriate waste and food management, and elevated the risk to wildlife and themselves: “Many posting on social media had indicated that there was an increase in bear sighting at the hot springs area. Bear attractants and mishandling of food at the camping area, along with the spike in use in the area, led to the bears becoming aggressive and charging people.”

RSTB has reported a significant number of issues in the area caused by some recreational users who have not practiced appropriate garbage and waste management, resulting in concerns about grizzly bears and black bears within camping areas and subsequently managed by closing the Pebble Creek hot springs trail.

Read the order of the clauses, because the order is the argument. Social media carries the location to a much wider audience. The use spikes. Food and garbage are left out. The bears become aggressive. The trail is closed. Five links, one paragraph, one ministry, one document. Nothing in that chain was supplied from outside the Province’s own file.

Location becomes known. Visitation spikes. An incident follows. An instrument closes it. The Province wrote that sequence down itself.

Three years later it said the same thing again, in a different document, jointly with the Nation whose territory the springs sit in. The April 2021 visitor use management strategy for the same hot springs puts the whole chain into a single sentence, and puts social media in the subject of it:¹⁸

Province of British Columbia with Líl̓wat Nation · April 2021 · § 4.3.2

… In 2013, Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. began construction of the Upper Lillooet Hydro Facility and gained authorization from the Province to construct the Líl̓watátkwa7 Trail… With a new trail, improved road access and the advent of social media, the popularity of Keyhole Hot Springs increased dramatically. In 2016, between 100–700 people were observed at Keyhole Hot Springs each weekend between March and May. Many visitors left garbage behind, and irresponsible camping practices resulted in the food habituation of several black bears.

“With a new trail, improved road access and the advent of social media, the popularity of Keyhole Hot Springs increased dramatically.” Three causes, named by the Province, and only one of them is within the control of the person holding the phone. The trail was built under provincial authorisation. The road access was improved by an industrial proponent. The third was a photograph and a location, repeated.

The same strategy records something sharper still about what actually travels. Material about the hot springs posted online, it says, “is often inaccurate and does not support respect for existing regulations.”¹⁸ The information that reaches the much wider audience is not the Province’s information. It is a stripped-down version — a name, a pin, a photograph — with the closure dates, the bear-attractant rules and the fire restrictions left behind. The location travels. The obligations that come with it do not.

One more thing about these two documents deserves to be said plainly, because it is the part that cannot be argued with. Every link in the chain except the last is behaviour, and every one of those links is recoverable. Garbage can be packed out. Food can be hung. A bear can be given a season to lose a habit. The last link is not behaviour and is not recoverable. It is an administrative act, made once, by an official, on a file — and the file was opened when the location became known.

This is also why the reasons in the ledger above are not alternative explanations to the one being made here. A wildlife closure is not a rival account of what happened at Múm̓leqs. It is the same event, further along the chain, and the Province documented the earlier links in the same paragraph as the later ones. The bear closure and the attention closure are one closure, written down twice.

Attention is not what damages a place. Attention is what opens the file, and the file is what closes it.

Section 06Joffre Lakes: five hundred people a day, and now you must prove who you are

Pipi7íyekw / Joffre Lakes is the mildest entry in the ledger and the most instructive, because it is the one place where the Province did not close the gate. It rationed instead. The figure below sets the park’s daily allowance against its overnight capacity, and then sets out what a visitor has had to produce to walk the trail in each of four years. Both come from BC Parks’ own releases.

Watch the bottom four rows rather than the top two. The requirement has been added to every few years, and it has never once been subtracted from.

Figure 04BC Parks · Pipi7íyekw / Joffre Lakes Park

What the park allows, and what it asks for. Pipi7íyekw / Joffre Lakes is managed to 500 day-use visitors a day and 26 overnight tent pads. Alongside that, what a visitor has had to produce to walk the trail: in 2019, nothing; from 2021, a free day-use pass; by 2024, a pass, the 500-a-day cap and three annual closures; and from 22 September 2026, all of that plus an identity-verified account — a BC Services Card or a verified email address. Source: News release 2024ENV0020-000628, 25 April 2024, for the cap of 500 passes a day and 26 tent pads; news release 2026ENV0037-001067, 15 September 2026, for the identity requirement.⁰⁵⁰⁹

Five hundred a day, and twenty-six tent pads. That is the whole of what the most photographed park in British Columbia is permitted to absorb. The passes are free, which sounds generous until the arithmetic is done: free and scarce is the exact condition that produces a secondary market. By August 2026 Joffre day-use passes were being flipped on Facebook and the booking service was being scraped in bulk.⁰⁹

The Province’s answer was not more capacity. It was more identification. From 22 September 2026, booking a free pass to four provincial parks requires a verified BC Parks account — a BC Services Card or a verified email address — introduced, in the Ministry of Environment and Parks’ words, “to help reduce interference from digital bots and other misuse.”⁰⁹

Follow that where it goes. Fame did not damage Joffre Lakes. Fame got Joffre Lakes rationed. The rationing then produced a scarcity worth gaming, and the gaming required an identity regime to police it. Each step was a reasonable answer to the step before, and the end of the sequence is that a British Columbian proves their identity to a government website in order to walk up a trail on a Saturday.

A queue is not a framework. It is what a government reaches for when it has no framework, and queues get gamed.

Section 07One district manager, one sentence, and no appeal against a road closure

All of which raises the obvious question: if a place is loved, counted, written about and economically useful, why can it not be defended? The answer is that British Columbia has no mechanism by which the public can have a place protected, and a great many by which one official can close one. That is not a characterisation of how the Province behaves. It is the structure of the statute book, and it is why secrecy is the only protection actually on offer.

Start with the road, because the road is what everything else depends on. Driving a forest service road in British Columbia is not a right. It is a permission, granted in one subsection of the Forest and Range Practices Act and removable two subsections later.¹⁹

Forest and Range Practices Act · s. 22.2

(1) … a road that is (a) a forest service road … may be used by any person without charge for a purpose other than a timber harvesting purpose, silviculture purpose or natural resource development purpose.

(2) The (a) district manager, for a forest service road … may take action under subsection (3) if (c) use of the road under subsection (1) would likely (i) cause significant damage to the road, (ii) cause significant sediment delivery, or (iii) endanger property, public health or public safety…

(3) … the district manager, for a forest service road, may (i) close the road or restrict its use…

Read subsections (1) and (2) together. The trigger in (2)(c) is “use of the road under subsection (1)” — the public’s own use, the use subsection (1) had just granted. And the three grounds are precisely what a busy road delivers. More vehicles is more damage to the road. More damage is more sediment into the creek. More people is more exposure of property and public safety. Popularity does not merely make a closure politically easier; it satisfies the statutory test on its face.

The statutory ground on which the public’s road may be closed is the public using it.

One district manager decides. Nothing on the face of that section requires an application, a notice, a comment period, written reasons or an appeal. The same pattern runs through the recreation side: a single designated recreation officer may close “all or part of a recreation site, recreation trail, trail-based recreation area or interpretive forest site” on the test that it is done “to protect the public, site, trail or area,” and may cap occupancy on being “satisfied that the limit is necessary to adequately manage the recreation site” — with awareness of the cap owed only to people who have already arrived.²⁰

Now set that against what the Province owes you before it restricts your behaviour. Before the minister may prohibit a recreational use anywhere on Crown land, the Forest Recreation Regulation requires a notice published in a newspaper stating the restriction, the area, the date it takes effect, how long it will last, and “the period during which, and the address to which, comments may be sent” — and FRPA s. 58(3) requires a notice posted in the area as well.²⁰ Before it destroys the road you reach the place on, the whole of what British Columbia law requires is this:²¹

Forest Planning and Practices Regulation · s. 84

At least 48 hours before commencement of road construction or deactivation in a community watershed, a person must notify affected water licensees or affected water purveyors.

Forty-eight hours. Owed to water licensees. Only inside a community watershed. If the road does not run through a community watershed the duty is nothing at all, and no person who uses the road is entitled to notice under any circumstances. That is the only advance-notice duty attached to road deactivation anywhere in the statute book.

British Columbia regulates the public’s behaviour with more process than it regulates the public’s access.

Nor is there a door to knock on from the other side. Recreation Sites and Trails BC says so in its own published guide: establishment under section 56 of FRPA — the designation that would give a place legal standing — is “an internal to Government process and decision. Unlike construction and maintenance authorizations, the public cannot apply to have land established as a recreation site or trail.” The one authorisation the public can seek “does not confer legal status to the trail or recreation facility itself,” and its exclusions name “Resource roads, including Forest Service Roads” outright.²²

And the designation behind that door, if it could be reached, protects very little. The Forest Practices Board has held that a section 56 designation “on its own carries no specific protection,” and that there are “no legal requirements in FRPA specifically relating to protection of a recreational trail.” It is also revocable: the Columbia and Western Rail Trail, designated in 2011, was disestablished on 6 July 2020 because Recreation Sites and Trails BC “did not have funding, staff or asset management systems in place to repair” it.²³

Underneath all of it sits a gap the Province has never closed. Recreation is the only forest value in British Columbia for which government has never set a legal objective. The Forest Practices Board’s own table marks every other forest value “Yes” and recreation “No,” and the Province said the same of itself in its own guide in 2005.²⁴ And a framework for exactly this problem was drafted, passed and left switched off: Part 7.1 of the Land Act is headed “Land Designation and Establishment of Objectives,” and in the current consolidation sections 93.1 to 93.3 read “[Not in force.]” The Forest Practices Board recommended a regulation bringing them into force in April 2015.²⁵

Eleven years later they are still not in force.

No local government can fill the gap either. The Interpretation Act provides that an enactment binding the government “in the use or development of land… does not bind or affect the government,” so no bylaw or community plan reaches provincial Crown land, and the Forest Act lets the minister close and discontinue a forest service road by published notice, with no consent, no hearing and no appeal.²⁶

And there is a reason the only instrument these offices reach for is a restriction: it is the only one they can afford. Across three audited years districts asked for $28.6 million, $39.0 million and $40.2 million to maintain forest service roads and received $5.6 million, $5.7 million and $5.5 million — 20 per cent, then 15, then 14. The Auditor General recorded what the Ministry of Forests does about the shortfall: an unpublished funding policy “advises districts to deactivate roads that they are unable to maintain,” and “there is no trigger or timeline for deactivation.” The same audit records that pressure to keep roads open for non-industrial users “is increasing the need for ongoing maintenance and resources” on a network the districts cannot fund.²⁷

Popularity raises the cost of a road on a network funded at fourteen cents on the dollar, under a policy that treats being unable to afford a road as grounds to remove it.

The Forest Practices Board has stated the sum of it in terms. There is “no agency charged with conducting access planning.” There are “virtually no proactive legal tools for setting access objectives.” “There is no legal requirement to notify the public about changes in access.” Users “can have no expectation that access will continue to be provided.” And the Ministry of Forests “has no explicit method of recording the location of deactivated roads” — information about roads already destroyed “was often deleted from government’s database.”²⁸

So this is the condition into which a location arrives the moment it is posted. The place has no designation and cannot be given one on request. The road to it is a revocable permission. The official who revokes it needs no application, no notice, no published reason and faces no appeal. And the Province keeps no register that would let anyone afterwards establish what was done, or when, or by whom.

There is no decision to appeal, because in law there was never a decision — only an outcome.

Section 08We are not gatekeeping the public. We are gatekeeping the government.

Tell your friends. Tell anyone who asks you directly. Take them there yourself, and take someone who has never been. Nothing in this argument is about who is allowed to go, nothing in it asks anyone to keep a place from another person, and nothing in it would be improved by fewer people loving these places. The coalition exists because too few people know what is being lost, not too many.

What is being withheld is withheld from one reader. Not from the family at the trailhead, not from the newcomer, not from the person who has just bought their first truck and wants to know where to point it. From the provincial offices that can close the place from a desk, with no application, no notice, no published reason and no appeal, and that have done so eleven times in ten years at the six places above.

We are not gatekeeping the public. We are gatekeeping the government.

And the terms on which that stops are not vague. They are specific, they are small, and every one of them is something the Province could do this year. A government that wanted the location data back could earn it by supplying four things it does not currently supply.

A published reason. Section 22.2 requires none. A district manager who closes a forest service road is not obliged to write down why, and the record shows the consequences: at one of these six places the live notice today gives a different reason from the one the closure was made under.

Notice. The only advance notice attached to a deactivation anywhere in British Columbia law is forty-eight hours, owed to water licensees, in a community watershed. Everyone else — the club that maintains the trail, the business at the trailhead, the family that has gone there for thirty years — is owed nothing, and the Forest Practices Board recommended that be fixed in April 2015.²⁸

An appeal. There is none. Not a slow one, not a hard one — none. There is no application to refuse, so there is no refusal to challenge.

A legal objective for recreation. It is the only forest value of eleven without one, twenty-four years into the governing statute, and the sections of the Land Act that would allow Cabinet to set one have read “[Not in force.]” for eleven years since the Province’s own oversight body asked for them.²⁴²⁵

Until those exist, there is no mechanism through which telling the government where a place is can help it, and a documented mechanism by which it can end it. A government that will not give notice, will not give reasons and will not accept an appeal has not earned the location data. That is not a grudge. It is a straightforward reading of what the Province can do with the information and what it cannot be made to do in return.

Secrecy is not a preference. It is the only protection the public has left, and it is the Province’s own doing.

Section 09Show the place. Do not name it.

So here is the ask, and it is small enough to act on this afternoon.

Show the place. Post the photograph. Post the fire on the beach, the water, the ridge behind it, the dog asleep in the tailgate, the whole good day. None of that is the problem, and a province full of people who love the backcountry and say so is the only thing that has ever kept a road open.

Do not name it. Not the place name, not the coordinates. Not the road number, not the kilometre mark, not the drainage, not the forest service road it branches from, and not the answer to a friendly question underneath the picture. “Somewhere in the Kootenays” is a complete answer. If someone needs the location, they can be told the way locations have always been passed: to a person, by name, who is going.

And be loud in the other direction. The same information that should stay off a public feed should go, in full and by name, to the people who hold the pen — the district manager, the minister, the MLA who wants your vote, and the independent board that can examine how these decisions get made. Quiet about locations, loud at government: those are not in tension. They are the same strategy, pointed at the two audiences that behave differently when they learn where a place is.

The person who asks “where is it?” under a photograph like that is being friendly, the person who posted it is proud of a good day, and neither of them has done anything wrong. But the Province wrote the rest of it down in March 2018 and again in April 2021, and the rest of it ends at a gate on the Lillooet South forest service road at kilometre 24 that has been closed year-round since 17 July 2018, on a rescission that does not expire.

Eleven instruments in ten years, and not one of them lifted. Three of the six places closed every day of the year. A trail you now identify yourself to walk. The harm here is not litter and it is not bears. The harm is administrative, and it is permanent in a way that nothing a visitor does on the ground ever is.

Show the place. Do not name it. We are not gatekeeping the public — we are gatekeeping a government that has closed or capped eleven places in ten years, never lifted one, and never once had to ask.Keep the location to yourself until they can be trusted with it.

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Six images carrying this story on their own — the argument, the section and the list. Made to be posted.

Suggested caption

Someone posts a photograph of a favourite spot, and someone asks where it is. Nobody asking or answering is doing anything wrong.

In British Columbia, section 22.2 of the Forest and Range Practices Act grants the public free use of a forest service road in subsection (1) and lets one district manager close it in subsection (3). The statutory trigger in between is “use of the road under subsection (1)” — the public’s own use. Nothing on the face of the section requires an application, a notice, a comment period, written reasons or an appeal.

Two BC government documents name social media directly. The March 2018 access report for the Upper Lillooet names “Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other blogs.” The April 2021 visitor-use strategy records that “with a new trail, improved road access and the advent of social media, the popularity of Keyhole Hot Springs increased dramatically.” Both describe a spike in use. Both end at a closure.

Establishing a recreation site is “an internal to Government process and decision… the public cannot apply.” Recreation is the only forest value in British Columbia for which government has never set a legal objective.

Tread lightly online.

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#BCpoli #PublicLand #Backcountry #TreadLightly

Sources

↩Public outdoor groups in British Columbia run to six figures of members; a hundred thousand is a round figure, not a count of any one group. No frequency figure is claimed anywhere in this piece. Nobody has published a count of location-asking in any outdoor community, so a rate can be neither established nor checked by a reader.
↩The positions plotted in Figure 01. Four are the site_point_geometry published in the Province’s own public recreation records and read on 27 September 2026: REC202717 (Lilwatatkwa7 — Keyhole Falls Hotsprings), REC0023 (Sloquet Hot Springs), REC202159 (Avatar Grove Hiking Trails) and REC6851 (Bonanza Bluffs). Two are from BC Geographical Names: Joffre Lakes Park and Molybdenite Creek. The recreation records are published in BC Albers (EPSG:3005) and were converted to latitude and longitude; the conversion was checked against the gazetteer’s own WGS84 output for a control point and reproduces it exactly. Recorded correction: an earlier working figure put Molybdenite Creek about 39 km south of Lillooet; on the gazetteer’s own coordinates the separation is 20.4 km, and the piece says “roughly twenty kilometres.” The coastline in the figure is a coarse hand-drawn outline for orientation and carries no claim; towns are plotted from the gazetteer. https://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/search
↩↩Keyhole Falls Hot Springs Recreation Site and Trail — Public Use Closure Notice, Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, notice date 1 April 2018. Establishes the standing annual closure from 1 April to 15 November and names three enforcement authorities on its face: Forest Recreation Regulation s. 20(3) at $115, Wildlife Act s. 33.1(2) at $345, and Land Act s. 59 for unauthorised occupation of Crown land at up to $1,000. The escalation on the record runs 2016 “until further notice,” 2017 “indefinitely,” 2018 a standing annual closure. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/natural-resource-use/resource-roads/local-road-safety-information/sea-to-sky/keyhole_hotsprings-annual_closure_notice.pdf
↩↩↩↩Wildlife Act Motor Vehicle Prohibition Regulation, B.C. Reg. 18/2024, Schedule 1. Read directly from the BC Laws consolidation on 27 September 2026. Item 62, “Texas Creek”: “The closure is effective during the period April 15 to November 30 in any portion of M.U. 3-16 outlined in dashed red on Map No. 1-62/23,” with an exception permitting motor vehicle use for a commercial purpose other than hunting during 1 July to 30 November. Map No. 1-62/23 shows Molybdenite Creek inside the closed boundary. The closure was created in 2009 (B.C. Reg. 143/2009) as a 15 April–30 June spring restriction, amended in 2017, extended to 30 November on 24 August 2021 (B.C. Reg. 224/2021), and carried forward into the current regulation on 1 March 2024. Item 66, “Sloquet Creek”: “The closure is effective during the period April 1 to June 15 in any portion of M.U. 2-9 outlined in dashed red on Map No. 1-66/24.” Correction recorded: the Sloquet closure was passed to us as item 68, which is its position in the regulation’s map index rather than in the operative schedule; the operative item is 66, and the map is 1-66/24. The day counts printed in Figure 02 — 230 and 76 — are arithmetic on those two windows in a non-leap year. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/18_2024
↩↩↩Pipi7íyekw / Joffre Lakes — the Province’s management decisions. Joffre Lakes Park Visitor Use Management Strategy, BC Parks with Líl̓wat Nation and N’Quatqua, published 15 June 2021. News release 2024ENV0020-000628, 25 April 2024, for the cap of 500 free day-use passes a day plus 26 tent pads. News release 2020ENV0037-001343, 22 July 2020, launching the pass pilot as a measure “intended to help BC Parks re-open busy areas and test the passes as a tool to manage overcrowding.” Information bulletin 2026ENV0022-000507, 7 May 2026, for the 2026 season: trail passes required 11 May to 25 October and closures 20–27 June and 8–30 September — the windows from which Figure 02’s 31 closed days and 137 pass days are calculated. Two numbers deliberately not printed: the commonly quoted 2019 figure of 196,322 visitors and “+222% since 2010” could not be verified to an official source on re-checking; and two provincial releases contradict each other on the 2019 parking expansion, one saying 250 to 450 cars and the other 250 to 350 vehicles, so no visitation or parking figure appears anywhere in this piece. https://nrs.objectstore.gov.bc.ca/kuwyyf/joffre_lakes_park_visitor_use_management_strategy_2021_449f5f7368.pdf
↩↩Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, news release 2016FLNR0131-001138, 23 June 2016. The first Pebble Creek / Keyhole Falls closure. Records aggressive black bears and grizzlies with cubs, “several encounters with bears, including a confirmed report of a bear-charge incident, that were attracted by the presence of human food and garbage at the hot springs,” warning signs posted weeks earlier that “were repeatedly removed,” and penalties of $115 and $345. The same release records the High Falls recreation site at km 5 of the Squamish River forest service road closed a week earlier for the same reason. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016FLNR0131-001138
↩↩Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, news release 2017FLNR0098-001202. The “indefinitely” closure, and the source for “due to increased wildlife conflicts caused by recreational users” and for the warning that “additional measures, up to and including removal of the hot springs bathing tubs, may be pursued.” Recorded discrepancy: two separate retrievals dated this release 12 May 2017 and 26 July 2017. The release number is stable and the text identical in both; the date used in Figure 03 and the ledger is 12 May 2017 and the release number is given alongside it. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2017FLNR0098-001202
↩↩The rescissions, the road gate, and the current status. Notice of Rescission of Permission to Occupy Crown Land, 20 March 2018; the gating of Lillooet South forest service road 7977 at km 24, 17 July 2018, year-round, under s. 6 of the Forest Service Road Use Regulation, signed by the District Manager, Sea to Sky Natural Resource District; and a second Notice of Rescission “effective from November 10, 2023 and does not expire.” The published rationale for the gate is on the Province’s own road-conditions page for the district: closed year-round to all public access “for public safety reasons and to minimize negative environmental impacts from unauthorized use at Meager Hotsprings.” Status checked against the Province’s live public recreation record on 27 September 2026: the Keyhole record (REC202717) reads Closed, and its current comment gives a separate and additional reason — a public safety closure for post-wildfire cliff destabilisation and hazard trees, risk assessed as Extreme. The instruments relied on in the body are the 2016–2018 sequence, the road gate and the non-expiring rescission. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/natural-resource-use/resource-roads/local-road-safety-information/sea-to-sky-natural-resource-district-road-safety-information/road-conditions-in-sea-to-sky-district
↩↩↩↩↩The pass resale market, and the identity requirement it produced. CBC News, 27 August 2026, reporting free Joffre Lakes day-use passes being flipped on Facebook and the booking service being scraped in bulk. Ministry of Environment and Parks news release 2026ENV0037-001067, 15 September 2026: from 22 September 2026 a booking requires a verified BC Parks account — a BC Services Card or a verified email address — across Golden Ears, Joffre Lakes, Garibaldi and Mount Seymour. Stated reason, verbatim: “The changes and additional security measures are being implemented to help reduce interference from digital bots and other misuse.” https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026ENV0037-001067
↩The stated grizzly rationale for the Texas Creek closure, and the standing behind it. Ministry of Forests to Pique Newsmagazine, 20 May 2022: “Roads are associated with increased [g]rizzly bear mortality risk, as they can put bears and humans into closer proximity.” The Stein-Nahatlatch grizzly population is rated of extreme conservation concern, at fewer than twenty animals including five breeding females. The closure is supported by the 2011 St’át’imc Chiefs Council resolution on grizzly recovery, and the Province directs public enquiries to Chief Michelle Edwards of Sekw’el’wás (Cayoose Creek Band) rather than to a ministry office. The Nation’s name is spelled here as the Nation writes it. Two corrections recorded so they are not propagated: Molybdenite Creek is not in Meager Creek or Líl̓wat territory, and there are no hot springs at Molybdenite Creek.
↩Líl̓wat Nation and N’Quatqua — quoted, never characterised. The joint statements of August 2023 and 20 August 2025, signed by Kúkwpi7 Skalúlmecw Dean Nelson and Kúkwpi7 Micah Thevarge, reach us through Pique Newsmagazine and CBC News. Source for “For decades, the province has permitted the overuse and degradation of [Pipi7íyekw] by allowing unsustainable levels of visitation. The land was never meant to endure this degree of exploitation. It requires periods of rest and regeneration”; and for Chief Dean Nelson in 2026: “These dates were not requests… They are the Reconnection Periods that Líl̓wat requires.” The Nations framed the 2023 closure as an assertion of Title and Rights to harvest and gather; the Province framed the same closure as reconciliation, cultural space and privacy. Líl̓wat Chiefs and Council issued a public message on 13 July 2026 about racist commentary directed at the Nation over park access. The Nations’ decisions are set out in this piece in their own words and are kept structurally separate from the Province’s cap and pass regime, which is what the surrounding argument concerns. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/joffre-lakes-closure-aug-24-1.6947335
↩Ministry of Environment statement on Avatar Grove, Sooke News Mirror / Black Press, 30 July 2024, reproduced by the Ancient Forest Alliance. Source for “We know how important it is to the local community and people eager to experience some of the Island’s biggest trees. We understand how popular the recreation site is and that popularity has had an impact on both the safety of the infrastructure, and on the trees that have been impacted by more and more people walking on exposed roots.” Attribution, exactly: a ministry statement quoted by a newspaper and reproduced by an advocacy organisation, not a ministry document retrieved directly; the Black Press original renders client-side. The closure was made by Recreation Sites and Trails BC while the statement came from the Ministry of Environment, as reported. https://ancientforestalliance.org/sookenewsmirror-local-news-avatar-grove-closure-limps-along-7449203/
↩The Avatar Grove closure, its removed steward, and its status on the day of writing. Ancient Forest Alliance volunteers built and upgraded roughly a kilometre of boardwalk, stairs, bridges and viewing platforms to 2017. In 2018 the Alliance was no longer permitted to maintain the trails, Recreation Sites and Trails BC having determined that safety and sustainability concerns had to be addressed first; plans were commissioned in 2020. In 2022 RSTBC closed the grove, citing significant impacts from fallen trees and erosion. Status verified directly against the Province’s live public recreation record on 27 September 2026: record REC202159, “Avatar Grove Hiking Trails,” status Closed, comment “Avatar Grove (T’l’oqwxwat) Recreation Site is Closed for Public Safety and Environmental Protection.” The 2022 step in Figure 03 carries a year and no day because the Province published none.
↩Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, news release 2012FOR0014-000160, 16 February 2012 — “All of Avatar Grove now protected.” Source for the expansion of the old-growth management area to 59.4 hectares and, in the same bulletin, for: “To fulfil the Province’s obligation to Teal-Jones Group, which holds the logging rights for Tree Farm Licence 46 where Avatar Grove is located, the boundaries of other old-growth management areas were adjusted by removing 57.4 hectares.” Net new protection of about two hectares is arithmetic on the Province’s own two figures. The same release records the autumn 2011 public review: 236 comments received, 232 in support. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2012FOR0014-000160
↩Sloquet Hot Springs — the conditions on the ground, and the live status. Pique Newsmagazine, 13 July 2024, reporting two truckloads of garbage a week, a campfire ban imposed that month, and a growing call for Xa’xtsa chief and council to close the area; the quoted councillor, on the record: “At any given time, we can just turn around and shut it down.” Attribution limit: the article’s reference to Instagram and TikTok is the reporter’s framing; Xa’xtsa’s own posted statement cites alcohol, garbage and disrespect, and does not mention online attention. The vehicle closure recorded in the ledger and in Figure 02 is a separate instrument under the Motor Vehicle Prohibition Regulation. Status checked 27 September 2026: record REC0023 reads Open, which is why the place is carried here as one under threat rather than one already lost. https://web.archive.org/web/20240713235243/https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/local-news/at-any-given-time-we-can-turn-around-and-shut-it-down-9199037
↩Bonanza Bluffs, and the claim that it is the one closure naming visitor behaviour. Recreation Sites and Trails BC record REC6851: “Site Closed. Bonanza Bluffs is a user maintained recreation site that has experienced soil erosion and vegetation damage in sensitive ecosystems from off-trail motorcycle use and garbage accumulation from users.” Status re-read 27 September 2026: Closed. A census of the live public database the same day returned 2,283 records, of which 153 were closed, and Bonanza Bluffs was the only closure comment naming damage caused by how visitors behaved. Provenance, stated precisely: that census was derived from a live, undocumented public interface; an independent re-run the same day found the search endpoint paginates out at about 400 records, so the reproducible portion covers 399 of 2,283 records containing 26 closures, among which Bonanza Bluffs remains the only visitor-caused one. The body makes the claim only about the record as a whole and prints no ratio. The Province’s own published closure taxonomy — wildfire, flooding, wildlife interactions, pandemic restrictions — does not list overuse as a category.
Places considered for the ledger and excluded, with reasons, so their absence is not mistaken for oversight. Nqw’elqw’elústen (Meager Creek, REC0236, re-read 27 September 2026: Closed): the stated reasons include cultural and spiritual significance to Líl̓wat Nation together with landslide, avalanche and flood hazard, and the 2010 Capricorn Creek landslide is a separate cause — it is deliberately absent from every figure. Háwint / Tenquille Lake (REC0237): the site reads Open, its cabin closure comment is a pandemic measure, and the loop trail’s stated reason is grizzly bear population recovery. Lussier Hot Springs: the signed Park Act order names boulder instability. St. Agnes Well / T’sek: closed since 2020 for COVID-19 and unfinished works. Quarry Rock: the frequently quoted 41,000-to-31,000 and 70-person-cap figures could not be found in any District of North Vancouver document and are not used. Elk Falls: reverse causality — the Province’s own release records the suspension bridge beginning as a Rotary Club vision “to create an attraction.”
↩↩↩Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, Motorized Access Management: Recommendations to Protect Grizzly Bears in the Upper Lillooet River Area, signed March 2018. Retrieved in full and text-extracted on 27 September 2026. All three quoted passages are at § 3.3.3, “Current status of recreation in the planning area,” p. 16. Source for the naming of the platforms — “other social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other blogs and website often share this information to a much wider audience” — for the inundation passage and the quoted observation beginning “Many posting on social media had indicated that there was an increase in bear sighting…”, and for “…subsequently managed by closing the Pebble Creek hot springs trail.” The vehicle counts come from a 2016 Innergex memo to RSTB recording public use at the kilometre 37.5 checkpoint on the Upper Lillooet forest service road: Easter weekend, 25–28 March 2016, 224 vehicles carrying 716 people; May long weekend, 20–22 May 2016, 350 vehicles carrying more than 700 people. Two attributions in the same report to keep straight: it dates the Pebble Creek / Keyhole Falls trail closure to early 2017 and attributes it to conflicts with bears, and it attributes the permanent closure of the Meager Creek hot springs to the 2010 landslide. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/plants-animals-and-ecosystems/wildlife-wildlife-habitat/grizzly-bears/upperlillooetaccessrecommendationsreport.pdf
↩↩Province of British Columbia with Líl̓wat Nation, Nqw’elqw’elústen (Meager Creek) and Múm̓leqs (Keyhole) Hot Springs Visitor Use Management Strategy — Phase 1, April 2021. The passage quoted is at § 4.3.2, p. 5; the sentence about inaccurate online information is at § 3. Retrieved and read in full by two independent researchers on 27 September 2026. https://landuseplanning.gov.bc.ca/api/document/6074bac208e61b001b45f5f6/fetch/Hotsprings_Visitor%20Use%20Management%20Strategy_Phase1_Apr2021.pdf
↩Forest and Range Practices Act, SBC 2002 c. 69, s. 22.2. Read directly from the BC Laws consolidation on 27 September 2026. Subsection (1) grants free public use of a forest service road for any purpose other than timber harvesting, silviculture or natural resource development. Subsection (2) lets the district manager act under subsection (3) where “use of the road under subsection (1)” would likely cause significant damage to the road, cause significant sediment delivery, or endanger property, public health or public safety. Subsection (3) permits closing the road or restricting its use. Nothing on the face of the section requires an application, a notice, a comment period, written reasons or an appeal. Scope, stated precisely: s. 22.2 closes or restricts use of a road; destruction of a road runs through the Forest Planning and Practices Regulation and Forest Act s. 121(9) instead. Fuller treatment in The law everyone forgot. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/02069_01
↩↩What the Province must do before restricting a recreational use. FRPA s. 58(1)(b) lets the minister by order restrict or prohibit “a recreational use anywhere on Crown land,” and s. 58(3) requires a notice posted in the area. Forest Recreation Regulation, B.C. Reg. 16/2004, s. 2(1) requires that before establishing, amending or cancelling such an order the minister “must publish in a newspaper” a notice stating the restriction, the area, the effective date, the duration, and “the period during which, and the address to which, comments may be sent,” with an escape at s. 2(3) where the minister considers the order does not significantly affect the public. The same regulation, s. 20(5), lets a recreation officer close all or part of a recreation site, trail or area “to protect the public, site, trail or area,” and s. 20(2) lets that officer limit occupancy where “satisfied that the limit is necessary to adequately manage the recreation site,” with reasonable steps owed only to make persons who arrive at the site aware of the limit — one designated official, on those tests, with no application, published reasons, comment period or appeal in the regulation. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/16_2004
↩The whole of pre-deactivation notice in British Columbia law. Forest Planning and Practices Regulation, B.C. Reg. 14/2004, s. 84, quoted in full in the body. Also s. 79(3): “the government must maintain a forest service road … until the road is deactivated,” so deactivation is the event that ends the duty and has never been a duty; and s. 79(2)(b), under which a maintenance obligation ends where “the minister notifies the person that the road should not be deactivated due to use or potential use of the road by others” — a power for which no published process, form, criterion, timeline, duty to consider or appeal could be found. Forest Act s. 121(9)(a): the minister “may, by notice … published or broadcast … discontinue and close a right of way or forest service road,” with no consultation requirement, no recreation consideration and no appeal.
↩Recreation Sites and Trails BC, Applicant Information Guide for section 57 authorisations, effective 1 April 2025, 20 pp., read in full. Source for “Establishment under section 56 of FRPA is an internal to Government process and decision. Unlike construction and maintenance authorizations, the public cannot apply to have land established as a recreation site or trail”; for “An authorization under section 57 of FRPA does not confer legal status to the trail or recreation facility itself”; and, from the exclusions at § 2, verbatim: the authority does not apply to “Resource roads, including Forest Service Roads, but not including non-status roads used for recreation trail purposes, or resource roads where an overlapping established recreation trail exists.” The delegation ladder, from the RSTBC Orientation Manual of June 2023: an Assistant Deputy Minister establishes under s. 56, a District Recreation Officer authorises work under s. 57, a Regional Manager closes under s. 58. One correction recorded: a statutory review and appeal route does exist under Forest Recreation Regulation s. 5(1), leading to FRPA ss. 80 and 82 and the Forest Appeals Commission on a three-week clock — and the word “appeal” appears nowhere in the twenty-page guide given to applicants. That review route attaches to a refusal of a s. 57 authorisation; it does not attach to a road closure under s. 22.2, which is the power the body describes as unappealable. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/sports-recreation-arts-and-culture/outdoor-recreation/camping-and-hiking/recreation-sites-and-trails/section-57/applicant_information_guide_s57.pdf
↩What a designation is worth, from the Forest Practices Board. FPB/IRC/190, December 2013 (Sunshine Coast Trail): the designation of a trail under s. 56 “on its own carries no specific protection, but empowers the Minister to establish objectives for it,” and “There are no legal requirements in FRPA specifically relating to protection of a recreational trail.” That trail’s construction began in 1992 and establishment came in 2009 — seventeen years. FPB/IRC/238, June 2021: the Columbia and Western Rail Trail, established 2011, was disestablished on 6 July 2020 because RSTBC “did not have funding, staff or asset management systems in place to repair” the ageing infrastructure, FRPA s. 56(1)(c) being the same subsection that establishes. https://www.bcfpb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IRC238-CWRT.pdf
↩↩Recreation is the only forest value with no legal objective. Forest Practices Board Special Report SR/59, Forest Recreation Management in B.C., May 2021: “To date, government has not established a provincial FRPA objective for the recreation resources value,” its own table marking recreation resources and resource features “No” and every other forest value “Yes.” The Province said the same of itself in its 2005 guide: “There are no objectives in regulation for recreation resources or resource features.” The Forest Planning and Practices Regulation confirms it in the negative, prescribing objectives for soils, timber, wildlife, riparian areas, fisheries-sensitive watersheds, community watersheds, biodiversity, visual quality and cultural heritage, and nothing for recreation. The same report records that only three forest districts have used the resource-feature tool, that there are three orders province-wide designating recreation values as resource features, and that the provincial recreation features inventory “was last updated in 1999.” https://www.bcfpb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SR59-BC-Forest-Recreation-Mgmt.pdf
↩↩The framework that was drafted, passed, and never brought into force. Land Act, RSBC 1996 c. 245, Part 7.1, “Land Designation and Establishment of Objectives.” In the BC Laws consolidation, read directly on 27 September 2026, sections 93.1 to 93.3 read “[Not in force.]” They would let Cabinet designate land and establish objectives for it. The surrounding architecture was enacted, is in force, and defers to them: s. 93.5 provides that the minister “must not establish an objective under section 93.4 … unless the objective is consistent with every (a) designation made under section 93.1, and (b) objective established under section 93.3,” the Cabinet designation prevailing in a conflict. The in-force partial tool is s. 93.4, under which the minister may by order establish objectives for the use and management of Crown land, with s. 93.6 requiring the proposed objective to be made publicly available for review beforehand and the Land Use Objectives Regulation requiring a 60-day comment period. The Forest Practices Board recommended a regulation bringing 93.1 and 93.3 into force in April 2015. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96245_01
↩Why no local government can protect a place on provincial Crown land. Interpretation Act, RSBC 1996 c. 238, s. 14: “(1) Unless it specifically provides otherwise, an enactment is binding on the government. (2) Despite subsection (1), an enactment that would bind or affect the government in the use or development of land … does not bind or affect the government.” Community Charter, SBC 2003 c. 26, s. 35(2)(g) excludes forest roads from municipal highway ownership, and s. 40(1)(a) limits closure powers to highways vested in the municipality. Forest Act s. 121(9)(a) lets the minister close and discontinue a forest service road by published notice. Two citation corrections recorded so they are not propagated: the Local Government Act is RSBC 2015 c. 1, not SBC; and there is no Forest Act s. 43.54, while Local Government Act s. 457.1 is not the Crown-land carve-out it is sometimes cited as. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96238_01
↩Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia, Management of Forest Service Roads, dated 29 November 2020, released 19 January 2021, 56 pp. Read directly on 27 September 2026. Exhibit 8, p. 39: requests of $28.6M, $39.0M and $40.2M over three years against allocations of $5.6M, $5.7M and $5.5M — 20%, 15%, 14%. pp. 47–48: “Pressure for districts to keep roads open for non-industrial users is increasing the need for ongoing maintenance and resources. However, the districts are unable to meet policy requirements to maintain FSRs because of funding constraints”; “there is no trigger or timeline for deactivation”; and the Engineering Program Funding Policy “advises districts to deactivate roads that they are unable to maintain at the wilderness standard” — a policy published nowhere. The report’s own limitation travels with it: “We did not assess in the field whether roads were safe and environmentally sound.” Fuller treatment in the road audit. https://www.oag.bc.ca/app/uploads/sites/963/2024/08/OAGBC-20210119-Management-Forest-Service-Roads_RPT.pdf
↩↩Forest Practices Board, Access Management and Resource Roads: 2015 Update, Special Report FPB/SR/49, April 2015. Source, at p. i, for “There is currently no agency charged with conducting access planning”; “There are virtually no proactive legal tools for setting access objectives”; “There is no legal requirement to notify the public about changes in access”; and that other users “can have no expectation that access will continue to be provided once the industrial licensee no longer needs the road.” Source for the record-keeping finding — “FLNR has no explicit method of recording the location of deactivated roads,” a minimum of 20,000 km inferred, which “may significantly underestimate” the total because that information “was often deleted from government’s database” — for the Board’s recommendation that government require timely notification to non-industrial users about pending changes in road status, and for the recommendation to bring Land Act ss. 93.1 and 93.3 into force. https://www.bcfpb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SR49-Access-Management.pdf