A grassroots community conservation group would like Prince George to find Lost Lake.
It is right there on the map, situated conveniently in the Beaverly-Chilako area, barely outside the city's western boundaries, yet few people know of it. It is such an asset to the neighbourhood, according to those on the Lost Lake Trails Committee, that it should be the site of an interpretive forest.
Years of research have already gone into the proposal. The first meetings happened in 2007 with studies, initial consultations and preliminary proposals in the works ever since. The idea was been recognized in the regional district's 2010-2020 official parks plan, as well as in the Chilako River Official Community Plan authored in 2010 by the regional district, and the provincial government's Crown Land Management Plan, also in 2010, but it has not yet won the final approval of the provincial government.
The time has come to apply for that final step, said one of the leading proponents of the plan, Doug Beckett, who lives near the 325-acre area.
"The goals would be to some form of green-space management plan over the area so a committee could designate appropriate uses in there, and take steps to limit the conflicts that are already happening in this area," he said.
The conflicts are many. Ad hoc trails have been beaten into the terrain around the lake and its adjacent swamps. There are also private lands bordering the proposed green space that some users trespass on. There are motorized vehicles, horseback riders, mountain bikers and pedestrians all mingling on the trails at once, on clay paths not designed to handle that traffic.
Installing fortified trials would be one of the priorities of the group, should the management plan be adopted. Also, due to the sensitive ecology in some parts of the area, human influence would be reduced.
Beckett stressed, however, that this proposal was not an exclusion plan. On the contrary, he said, it's an ideal place for exercise, family outings, outdoor enthusiasts of all sorts and, if adopted, could be especially useful for education.
"There is a lot of character to the terrain in there," he said. "There are drumlin features, esker features, a graduated series of wetlands so you can see the natural functions of water in a series from small marsh up to the lake, there is an amazing viewpoint out over the whole Chilako River valley, all the plants and animals that use it as habitat or on their migration paths, and more is being discovered in there all the time."
The results are not yet collated, but the Prince George Naturalist Club conducted a "bioblitz" last week to count up all kinds and quantities of creatures in the Lost Lake area at the time.
Beckett said the committee, made up of about 20 active members with dozens more offering input, has learned of suggestions dating back to the 1970s to turn the Lost Lake wetlands into some sort of protected zone. The urgency has ramped up lately because the Crown land in the Beaverly area is increasingly been sold off to private interests. It is not known if the lake and marshes themselves are on the block for sale, but adjacent parcels have been sold into private hands in the past 10 years or so, giving the committee the motivation to act as soon as possible.
"If we don't, the conflicts are only going to get worse because nobody is managing the area at all, or it will be lost to private development. Either way, the community loses," Beckett said. "The Beaverly area doesn't have all that much in the way of parkland, so we think it is a good fit, and will bring values of another kind to the people of Beaverly-Chilako, and the people of Prince George, and certainly to that ecosystem."
Anyone interested in learning more or helping the committee can email Beckett at [email protected].
