Over Edge Page 8

October 26, 1998

D Olis ) Your
Oyster...

STUDENT NIGHT
Jammin’ Tunes ¢ Buck-A-Beer

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DOWNIOWY

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Slide Show from
the Water’s Edge

By Nicole Larson

Students looking for an
interesting way to
spend an hour or so
found one on Friday,
October 23. Roy
Howard, from the
Fraser Headwater
Alliance, presented a
slide show about the
trail which follows the
Goat River, one of the
clearest, most pristine
rivers in British
Columbia.

Howard described the
history of the Goat
River Trail. It was first
created in 1886 as a
trail for prospectors, but
that route was probably
a much older First
Nations trade route long
before that. It was then
upheld by the BC
Forest Service but their
maintenance ended in
the 1970s. This past
summer a group from
the Robson Valley start-
ed to clear the trail
anew.

60 volunteer person
days and 25 paid per-
son days were put into
the recovery of the trail.
The group succeeded
in cleared 14km of the

32km trail, using metal
tags instead of blazes
on the trees. They hope
that the whole trail will
be cleared by the year
2000.

The slides showed an
amazing array of plant
life. Along the Goat
River are pockets of
rare “antique” forest,
trees that have been left
undisturbed for thou-
sands of years. The
vivid colors of the forest
floor were also repre-
sented in Howard’s
slides.

There is plenty of evi-
dence of human use of
the area. Old, aban-
doned cabins, cache
pits, tree blazes, and
weathered forest ser-
vice signs give the trail
a human history as well
as a natural one.

The Goat River Trail
has been nominated for
provincial “Heritage

Trail’ status, but has not
yet been designated as
such. Logging in the
area is not yet preva-
lent, but plans are in the
works to log along parts
of the Goat River.