Hupacasath First Nation has hoisted a new highway billboard welcoming visitors to their traditional territory. Located at the edge of the Alberni Toyota dealership on Johnston Road, the sign is mounted on timbers cut by Hupacasath members on a new portable sawmill located right across the parking lot from the band office.
Hupacasath CEO Rick Hewson said the ability to custom-cut lumber fits into several short- and long-term plans.
“One, the band has an active woodlot, so there are opportunities for the mill to be used for that, and there is also the potential for other businesses in the Valley to utilize its capacity as well. We are currently in discussions with larger producers as well,” he said.
Currently, Bert McCarthy is training four members to use the equipment, which can be folded into a single trailer towed by an ordinary pickup truck using a standard hitch.
“We cut the posts for the new sign. They’re 8 X 8 and 20 feet long,” McCarthy said. “Right now, we’re mainly practicing cutting different sizes. We don’t have any custom orders yet.”
While it is not formally linked, Hewson said Hupacasath would like to be able to mill its own lumber for a major development on Great Central Lake.
“We have an opportunity to take on a long-term lease, a 99-year lease with option to renew, to build a large float home project,” he said.
To this point, Hewson explained, float home development on the lake has been haphazard and unregulated, and the province has resolved to bring in zoning regulations to regulate what sort of structures will be built, as well as critical environmental concerns such as garbage and wastewater treatment.
“They want it centralized, coordinated, sewer and water systems, insurance, whereas right now it’s ‘Float where you will, attach what you will, do what you will, effluent into the lake, build what you want.’”
In short, as far as float homes are concerned, it is still the Wild West on Great Central Lake. Hupacasath elected councillor and forestry manager Warren Lauder said a previous developer brought forward a proposal to bring existing float homes into a central, regulated site on Boot Lagoon, but the plan never came to fruition.
“Now the province has invited Hupacasath to develop a whole new float home community,” he said.
“There are actually three different opportunities,” Hewson said. “There’s a likelihood that two of them would go forward; one larger one first that will have up to 100 float homes, and a smaller one that has about 30.”
Hewson said the province recognizes that Hupacasath has a vested interest in maintaining the highest environmental standards in its own traditional territory, both on the lake, which is a major sockeye spawning site, as well as in the surrounding forests. The province has already given protected status to the sacred site known as Thunder Mountain, he added.
“For the float home owners, the ‘win’ is that they now have something that has value,” Hewson said.
While at first blush, it may sound like government bureaucracy and added expense for would-be float home owners. Being part of a regulated community with infrastructure and services means there is an actual deeded property that can be assessed and insured, like any city home.
“It’s actually something that you own, and something you can sell,” Hewson
said.
Lauder said the plan is to mill timber from the band’s two woodlots.
“Our woodlot out at Sproat Lake only has an annual allowable cut of 3,800 cubic metres. It’s fairly small timber right now, but the AAC will go up as the trees mature,” he said.
The familiar Woodlot 1902, which extends along the Redford Extension near the Alberni Valley Chamber of Commerce office, has an annual allowable cut of 5,000 cubic metres. Lauder said the urban interface woodlot does create concerns for neighbours, because of the number of small streams crisscrossing the area.
“We’ve assured them that Hupacasath will be good neighbours,” he said. It will be some time before Hupacasath-milled lumber is used to build the first float homes on Great Central Lake. Until then, the new welcome sign will act as a visible advertisement for custom-cut wood.
“We will also be presenting reproductions of the welcoming sign to the City of Port Alberni and the Chamber of Commerce,” Lauder said.
“To start with, we’re building some park benches and picnic tables that are going to be installed at the band dock on River Road, across from the old band office,” Hewson said.
