6 minute read
A hike with Eagle
BY ISABELLE SOUTHCOTT | isabelle@prliving.ca
skipped out of the office at noon one day last month to meet the legendary Eagle Walz for an afternoon hike.
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I’ve known Eagle for years. We sit on Tourism Powell River’s board together, I’ve interviewed him on several occasions – after all he’s the granddaddy of the Sunshine Coast Trail (SCT) – and I’ve been a long-time admirer of the passion and dedication this retired educator has for trail building and preserving the outdoors for future generations.
But before last month, I’d never had the opportunity to go on a hike with him.
We met at the Tla’amin Convenience Store across from the new Tla’amin trail head as we’d planned to hike the new section of the Tla’amin Trails Network. I’d wanted to hike this particular trail ever since Eagle told me about it a few months earlier, but we were waiting for the perfect day.
Today was that day.
The sun was shining brightly and although it was brisk, it was tropical, compared to the rest of Canada. A light dusting of snow could be seen in the higher elevations but all that did was make the contrast between the vivid blue sky and the white puffs above even more striking.
Underfoot, the forest floor was soft and spongy. “This is a four seasons trail,” Eagle explained. Despite a few muddy patches – which were easy to circumvent – the bulk of the trail was in pretty good shape, given the fact it was early February.
A few years ago Eagle, who is the president of Powell River Parks and Wilderness Society (PRPAWS) and Tla’amin decided to build a trail around the Tla’amin community. They wanted it to hook up with the Sunshine Coast Trail and to help with developing tourism infrastructure in the area.
Tla’amin’s community development officer Roy Francis and Lands & Referrals manager Denise Smith, were the leads on this project along with Trisha Wilson. They secured a rural dividends fund grant and were able to hire a crew of four from Tla’amin to work on the trail for ten weeks in 2018. Eagle, who was the volunteer consultant on the project, made suggestions and worked on the trails alongside the crew one day a week. The following year another grant was approved and a crew of five was hired.
“They finished all the roughed in trails the previous crew had worked on,” said Eagle. As well, they also did some new work with a trail that hooks up to the Sunshine Coast Trail just south of Little Sliammon Lake.
We continue hiking and I’m pleasantly surprised at how well my five-month-old Nova Scotia duck toller Jigs is doing. She waits for me and if I’m too slow, she’ll circle back. My feet remain dry in my Blundstones, something for which I’m grateful.
Eagle says the few boggy patches will disappear in the near future. They’ve been marked and when it’s dry enough to do trail work, the volunteers will set to work diverting the water and filling the low spots in the trail with rock and soil.
I liked this trail for several reasons. It’s accessible. You can park close to the trail head. It’s close to town which means you can skip out of work early and get a short hike in before dinner.
It’s user friendly – children and people who don’t hike a lot or those who aren’t in tip top shape can manage this hike but still feel challenged while enjoying some amazing natural features. And if you push yourself, you can still feel like you’ve had a good workout!
The views from above are spectacular. You can see Harwood, Savary and there’s an unusual view of the north side of Wildwood and Texada with Vancouver Island in the distance.
This trail puts you very close to Kwolum Creek and I have to say, there’s nothing more revitalizing and soothing than the sound of natural running water meandering alongside a trail. “In the fifties a dam was built to store more water when it was running,” Eagle explained. “It was the first source of community water for Tla’amin.” That dam has since been decommissioned. I love the thick moss that hangs from the trees and the many shades of green that carpet the forest floor. Watching the enjoyment of my pup in the woods reminds me just how essential it is for us to get out in the woods and reconnect with Mother Nature.
So far, there’s a picnic table and a few benches for hikers to enjoy but Eagle says more are in the works.
At 70-something, Eagle is fitter than many twenty years younger. He’s disciplined about his diet and still gets outdoors regularly with his crew to build and maintain trails and huts, usually on the Sunshine Coast Trail. I find it hard to keep up with him and I’m not sixty yet.
Eagle says the rural dividend grant will cover signage which will be posted at the trail head kiosk with a large map. It will contain basic info about Tla’amin. There’ll be about a dozen smaller map posts along the trail with information about a particular aspect of the Tla’amin lands and the creatures who live here. “There’ll also be QR codes so if there is reception people can find out more information and hear the Tla’amin language spoken over their phone,” adds Eagle.
The whole Tla’amin Trails Network can be extended by using the Tees Kwat Trail and the Wildwood Switchback Trail, plus the sections of the SCT from the Powell River Bridge over Scout Mountain and past Little Sliammon Lake. Together with the community route along the waterfront to Klahanie and Governance House, it is a loop of approximately 13 to 14 km.
Other partners besides Tla’amin Nation and PR PAWS that contributed toward making the trails network a reality have been the government of British Columbia, Memory Attic Media, and First Credit Union.
The co-founders of the Sunshine Coast Trail – Eagle and Scott Glaspey – have spent thousands of hours creating trails for future generations to enjoy.
Eagle, who is the author of The Sunshine Coast Trail book, is out of bed by 4 or 5 am most mornings. He has to be; he’s got a lot to accomplish. “I’m working on revising The Sunshine Coast Trail book,” said Eagle. He’s also writing a companion book for through-hikers of the SCT.
The SCT can be traced back to 1992 when Eagle and his like-minded friends founded PRPAWS. They’ve spent the last 28 years creating trails that link up a variety of landscapes – everything from gurgling creeks to breath-taking views overlooking the ocean and islands beyond. In the process, they’ve lobbied hard for the creation of protected areas along the trail.
