Fight intensifies to save the Stein
The fifteen year old fight to save the Stein River Valley from logging is entering a critical phase. B.C. Forest Products (BCFP), the company with the logging quota on the Stein, is gearing up to begin road construction in the lower Stein Canyon this fall. At stake is the largest wilderness watershed in southern British Columbia, an area of over 400 square miles and as yet, unlogged.
This majestic wild river flows within an area of great natural diversity: from a virtual desert where the Stein meets the Fraser at 800 feet above sea level to its headwaters in the glaciers high in the coast mountain range. Numerous steep side valleys with waterwalls and deep forests, broad alpine meadows, large mountain lakes, and the highest peak in southwestern B.C. provide habitat for a great array of wildlife-grizzly and black bear, mountain sheep and goat, beaver, wolverine, cougar, deer, many species of bird life, and seven species of fish. The landscape changes constantly along the river's route- the wet rainforest climate of the Coast Mountains gives way in turn to the hot, dry canyonlands of the Interior Plateau where the river makes its final dash between towering rock walls to spill into the Fraser River.
The Stein is more than an outstanding natural environment. Throughout the region are scattered the remains of pithouses, cachepits, pictographs, and petroglyphs. The Lillooet and Thompson peoples have used the Stein watershed extensively for thousands upon thousands of years. The watershed as a complete entity, makes a unique contribution to the physical and spiritual sustenance of these peoples. This is a place of spiritual renewal... known by Indian elders, felt by any visitor to the region.
All this will change abruptly if road- building and logging are allowed to begin. Preliminary road-building work is proceeding rapidly at the time of this writing. The ochre hue of pictographs is now being joined by the unbelievably bright reds, blues and pinks of plastic survey ribbons. Under the banner of a "multiple-use" forest policy, the last major untouched valley is South Western British Columbia is slated to be logged.
