Sunshine Coast land’s sale listing spurs call for conservation

Nearly 2,000 acres of land in one of B.C.’s most stunning fiords is up for sale for $3.2 million, prompting calls to turn the undeveloped land into protected park land.

The 1,783-acre Sunshine Coast property — boasting more than four kilometres of ocean frontage, but also granite cliffs and steep terrain — is located on the south side of Princess Louisa Inlet, a popular destination for tourists and Pacific Northwest boaters.

“It’s as close to heaven on Earth as you can get,” said Robert Rothe, president of the Princess Louisa International Society, a non-profit dedicated to the preservation of the inlet.

The listing says the property “adjoins conservation land.” It presents a “large timber component and carbon credit potential” and could be turned into a “private retreat and land bank for long-term investment or conservation project.”

“A rare opportunity to purchase such a significant oceanfront acreage so close to Vancouver,” it states.

The property, made up of three parcels of land, is owned by a holding company registered in Vancouver. It bought the land in 2015 for $3.2 million. In 2017, B.C. Assessment assessed the properties at $711,000.

The listing triggered calls on social media for the land to be protected. Suggestions included a provincial park with camping sites for boaters and kayakers and a co-opowned recreational wildlife area.

Rothe, based in Washington state, said it would be in the best interests for Canadians to have the site preserved. Any full-on logging — a difficult endeavour because of the steep terrain, he noted — would be a tragedy.

“You would have so much scarring it would take away from the beauty of what God created and turn it into an industrial park,” Rothe said.

The area at the head of the inlet, near Chatterbox Falls, was owned by homesteader James MacDonald, who donated it to the society in 1953. The society turned the land over to the provincial government, which established the Princess Louisa marine provincial park in 1965.

Bill Ireland, a Vancouver-based director of the society, said the group’s objective is to acquire more land along the shores of the inlet to preserve it for the public’s benefit.

“I suppose if we had the opportunity to buy that land at a price the owners would accept, we would do it,”hesaid.

The asking price, however, is “beyond our present reach.”

Rothe said the society is open to work with parties who want to preserve the land.

Other locals aren’t too concerned who buys the land, so long as they are good stewards.

Bryce Christie, owner of Sunshine Coast Tours, which provides boat tours to the inlet, said what’s needed is long-term management.

Done properly, over the ridge where it won’t be visible from the water, logging won’t damage the inlet, and could help prevent forest fires, he said.

“It’s a spectacular inlet, a marquee destination for the province and a tourism draw,” said Christie. “It’s worth protecting, but I want to make the point that protecting it doesn’t mean not touching it.”