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Mount Moresby Adventure Camp fears logging is imminent

A forest area near the camp could be logged in the coming days

By Andrew Hudson

Haida Gwaii Observer

 

A forest area long used as an outdoor classroom by the Mount Moresby Adventure Camp could be logged in the coming days.

"It could go really quickly," says Toby Sanmiya, executive director of the Mount Moresby Adventure Camp Society.

"Within 24 hours they can be there, and it would be gone in two or three days."

According to the society, B.C.'s forests ministry is on the verge of permitting the TimberWest Forest Corporation to log a 16-hectare area beside the camp.

Housed in a pair of longhouse-style buildings by the east shore of Mosquito Lake, the camp runs a popular, five-day forest stewardship program open to all Haida Gwaii students in Grades 5, 9, and 11.

More than 1,300 students have stayed at the camp in the last decade, said Sanmiya, and many will remember guided walks along trails that criss-cross the area where logging is proposed, and activities along a nearby salmon-bearing creek.

Angus Wilson, superintendent for  the Haida Gwaii school district, said in a press release that the camp has been an "integral part" of the curriculum for all Haida Gwaii students.

Besides the five-day camp sessions that run each spring and fall, camp instructors also visit Grade 5 students to teach day-long lessons on outdoor education — everything from food-gathering to orienteering and knife safety.

"To lose this safe, organized, and just plain fun resource would be a deathblow to Haida Gwaii students' outdoor education opportunities," said Wilson.