Paradise Lost

Walking on the bottom of Buttle Lake on Vancouver Island feels like walking through a graveyard. Instead of crosses and marble markers, there are one-ton giant stumps left as tombstones, their rings dating their origins back some 900 years.

More than six decades ago these trees were cut down to make way for BC Power Commission’s Strathcona Dam, harnessing a watershed more than 1,400 kilometers square. Today, that denuded forest floor is visible only when water levels are especially low. Usually canoeists only catch a glimpse of the ancient ghosts below as they paddle on the surface above.

I’ve put my canoe in the water here at the southern end of Buttle Lake many times. Each time I’ve been humbled by the giant firs on the shore at the access, and then by the apparitions that pass beneath my boat. Yet, it was when the lake was low that the most striking photos I have taken here were created.

I had come here to paddle and found a nearly dry basin instead. It felt unreal to be standing on ground that is sometimes several feet under water. Equally unreal was to imagine that half a century ago, this almost-dry lakebed was a pristine forest. I asked my friend to climb onto a nearby stump with the canoe and pretend to go for a paddle, freezing the surreal landscape and our experience in a single frame.

I’m not naive to the necessity of industry, yet this photo stirs a conversation about conservation. Stewardship of vulnerable ecosystems is crucial for the future. With less than 10 percent of old growth forests remaining on Vancouver Island, a fraction remaining around the world and logging continuing, these towering sentinels are becoming more and more endangered, and when they’re gone, it’s forever.

Graeme Owsianski is an outdoor adventure photographer based in Ucluelet, British Columbia. Discover more about endangered old growth forests at www.ancientforestalliance.com.