Rare species like American badgers, flammulated owls, yellow-breasted chats, desert night snakes and western rattlesnakes make their home in the southern Okanagan Valley grasslands in the heart of B.C.’s wine, golf and beach country. 

For more than 15 years, efforts to create a national park in the grasslands, one of Canada’s most unusual and beautiful landscapes, have started, stalled and re-started. 

Cattle graze near the border of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior, just west of the White Lake Grasslands Protected Area, near Okanagan Falls, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

On July 3, the fiercely debated South Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Reserve took a large step closer to becoming a reality with the signing of a memorandum of understanding among the province of B.C., the government of Canada and the Syilx/Okanagan Nation.

The memorandum establishes a working boundary for the park and the framework for negotiations moving forward, but it doesn’t seal the deal on the national park, which has polarized pro- and anti-park factions since the idea was first pitched in the early 2000s.

“It’s an important milestone for sure,” says Richard Cannings, MP for the South Okanagan-West Kootenays and the federal NDP’s natural resources critic. “I grew up in these grasslands and it’s one of the top-four endangered ecosystems in Canada.”

But Cannings, who is also a well known biologist and field guide author, is also cautious about the future of the area long on the radar of conservationists and scientists.

South Okanagan-West Kootenay MP Richard Cannings photographed on his property above Penticton, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

B.C.’s southern grasslands — which include an arid ecosystem around Osoyoos reminiscent of the Arizona desert and characterized by antelope brush and fragrant sagebrush — face intense development pressure. People want to live and play in an area known for its hot summers and mild winters. Changing normalized patterns of behaviour on the landscape, whether it’s ATVing or hunting, is always an uphill struggle. 

Desert brush photographed in the White Lake Basin, which is at the centre of a debate over the future of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern grasslands. Photo: Jake Sherman

Desert brush in the White Lake Basin. Photo: Jake Sherman

By national park standards, the proposed South Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Reserve is small. It’s roughly 300 square kilometres and covers an area from Taylor Lake north of Oliver to the U.S.-Canada border, bounded by the Similkameen River and the west side of the Okanagan Valley. (Banff National Park, Canada’s first national park, is more than 6,600 square kilometres by comparison.) 

The park would be composed of a patchwork of existing provincially protected lands, open Crown land and private parcels. More than 30 federally listed species at risk and 60 provincially listed species live within the proposed park boundaries.

The White Lake basin and grasslands. Photo: Jake Sherman

The White Lake Grassland Protected Area, basin and biodiversity ranch are at the centre of a heated debate of the future of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior. Photo: Jake Sherman

It’s a naturalist’s paradise and also unfinished business for Parks Canada. It would fill a gap in Canada’s national parks plan, which identifies B.C.’s southern grasslands as one of 39 eco-regions that form a distinctive component of the national landscape — an ecosystem that so far lacks national park representation. 

Ken Wu is co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a conservation group he left early this year to launch a new organization, the Endangered Ecosystem Alliance. 

“Most people associate me with big trees and coastal forests,” Wu says. “But I believe this is one of the greatest conservation opportunities in Canadian history. It would have some of the highest densities of listed species of any national park in Canada.”

However the anti-park faction is as passionate as pro-park conservationists like Wu and Richard Cannings, whose professional association with this landscape dates back to the 1970s when, as a young university grad, he got a job surveying existing scientific literature on B.C.’s interior grassland regions as possible candidates for protection.

A home in the unincorporated town of Olalla, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

The issue has divided communities such as Oliver, where in April the confusingly named anti-national park group known as the South Okanagan Similkameen Preservation Society held a public meeting that drew 300 people. 

Many in attendance were opposed to the proposed park, including Rick Knodel, the Area C director for the regional district of Okanangan-Similkameen, who likens a national park to sacrificing local sovereignty to the federal government. 

Antipathy toward Parks Canada and the federal government runs deep among society members. Group spokesman Lionel Trudel, an Okanagan Valley-based photographer, insists the society supports conservation of the area’s unique grasslands, just not by bureaucrats based in Ottawa.

“We as a society are looking elsewhere for solutions and we don’t want Parks Canada as an entity in this region,” Trudel says.

He says the prospect of thousands of new visitors a national park would bring to the busy Okanagan Valley tourism corridor would add unwanted pressure to policing, ambulance services and other resources, as well as more traffic to the already busy Highway 97. 

The Crowsnest Highway, between Osoyoos and Keremeos, B.C., the site of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior. Photo: Jake Sherman

Trudel also says his group is concerned about potential special hunting rights for First Nations in a national park reserve that would otherwise be off-limits to hunters, ATV users and other groups.

Parks Canada held a series of 39 information meetings between January and March 2019, which were attended by more than 600 people, and also received feedback on the park from another 2,800 people in the form of  a survey. The results reflected a sharp divide between support and opposition.

Hunters and Marron Valley, B.C., residents Marty Clark, Sean Duncan, Doug Cowe, Michelle Parott and Dominic Gorkoff oppose the establishment of a national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior. Photo: Jake Sherman

MP Cannings believes many concerns about the park are based on misinformation that continues to spread among anti-park activists, such as the claim that Parks Canada will expropriate private land and drive out cattle ranchers. 

Neither is true according to Sarah Boyle, a Parks Canada project manager. She says the federal government cannot expropriate private property in order to establish or enlarge a national park or national park reserve.

“Private lands would only ever be purchased on a willing-seller/willing-buyer basis,” Boyle told The Narwhal.

Boyle added that Parks Canada will continue to work with ranching families to provide “stability and certainty on Crown grazing lands, tenures, water and other resource values.”

Cannings has heard Parks Canada address these concerns many times in the past.

“It’s frustrating to be going to public meetings 17 years into the process and still hear people talking about expropriation,” Cannings says. “Honestly I think there’s a lot of mistrust and dislike of the federal government that’s behind this.”

Uthlxanica7, 67, is a Syilx elder who opposes the establishment of a national park reserve in British Columbia’s Southern Interior. He lives on the Keremeos Forks Indian Reserve #12 and #12A between Kaleden and Keremeos, B.C., and said he sees the federal government’s encroachment as yet another tool of colonial exploitation. “The land is my home,” he told the Narwhal. “I don’t need the federal government to explain that to me. They tell me we’re multicultural. I’m not a multi-culture. I come from here. History repeats itself. Look at Yellowstone where my people can’t even get their medicine. The animals are leaving. The earth is talking. No one wants to listen. This is not gonna be fit for nobody.” Photo: Jake Sherman

Don Gayton is an American-born Vietnam War resistor, author and grasslands ecologists who has lived in Canada since the late 1960s. For the past dozen years Gayton has made his home in Summerland on the west shore of Okanagan Lake, about 40 kilometres from the proposed park’s northern boundary. He calls grasslands “the Rodney Dangerfield of ecosystems.” 

“They get no respect. In mountain parks, the scenery with all the waterfalls, glaciers and mountains does all the work for you. In grassland country, you have to do the work and get down on your hand knees to truly appreciate it. If you put in the effort, the quiet and amazing diversity is breathtaking,” Gayton says. 

“But this is a challenging place to create a national park. It’s basically a suburban area.” 

Don Gayton is a grasslands ecologist and the author of six books. He is a vocal proponent of a national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior. Photo: Jake Sherman

For park opponents worried about hunting access, Gayton points out that national parks can act as refugia for wildlife, which could benefit hunters in the long run. But as a grasslands ecologist, concerns about lost hunting opportunities rank low in importance. 

“Species like antelope brush, badgers and tiger salamanders are at the very northern end of their range. Their genetics are important because they’ve had to adapt,” Gayton says, pointing out that the South Okanagan belongs to the vast and arid Western Great Basin that spans North America from Mexico to just across the U.S.-Canada border. “This is an extremely rare and important region, ecologically.”  

That’s why he believes the region deserves the highest form of protection possible — and in Canada that means national park status. 

However, Gayton says Parks Canada is omitting two areas from the park proposal that biologists consider critical from a species and ecosystem perspective — Vaseux Lake and the White Lake Basin.

Vaseux Lake is the only place in the south Okanagan Valley where undeveloped land reaches the valley floor on both sides. Photo: Jake Sherman

Vaseux Lake, located between Okanagan Falls and Oliver, is a critical area excluded from the current national park reserve proposal. Photo: Jake Sherman

Vaseux Lake is found where the Okanagan Valley pinches to a narrow opening north of Oliver and is bounded on the west by soaring cliffs. It’s the only place in the south Okanagan Valley where undeveloped land reaches the valley floor on both sides. 

Immediately to the west is the natural grassland basin of White Lake, where nationally significant populations of the endangered sage thrasher are found, as well as unique mosses that thrive in the saline conditions of White Lake, tiger salamanders and a host of other listed species. 

Gayton calls White and Vaseux lakes one of the “jewels in the grasslands crown” and, like most conservationists, he’s confounded that they have been omitted from the national park reserve proposal. 

The White Lake biodiversity ranch between Okanagan Falls and Marron Valley, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

White Lake is one of the “jewels in the grasslands crown,” according to ecologist Don Gayton. Photo: Jake Sherman

Two federal agencies already own land in these areas, the Canadian Wildlife Service and the National Research Council, which runs the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory near White Lake.  

The Nature Trust of British Columbia owns the 940-hectare White Lake Basin biodiversity ranch and also co-manages — with B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations — roughly 480 hectares of land along Vaseux Lake, which includes important habitat for bighorn sheep. 

Wu says his organization will continue to push to have White Lake Basin and Vaseux Lake included in the park proposal. Cannings says he hasn’t heard “a reasonable explanation” for why they have been left out, but at this point prefers not to put up any more roadblocks.

“I suppose it speaks to the complexity of this national park proposal,” Cannings says. “At this point, I think most of us are feeling that we need to get this done.”

Getting final approval for the park won’t happen without the consent of  the Syilx/Okanagan Nation, which represents the Okanagan Indian Band, Osoyoos Indian Band, Penticton Indian Band, Upper Nicola Band, Upper and Lower Similkameen Bands and Westbank First Nation. 

The conservation model under consideration is a national park reserve, distinct from a national park in that it applies to lands that are also subject to a claim of Aboriginal title. Both Pacific Rim on Vancouver Island’s West Coast and Gwaii Haanas on the southern reaches of Haida Gwaii are national park reserves.

Clarence Louie, the tough-talking chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band, scoffs at park opponents who suggest a national park would lead to increased crime and wildfire risk, two tropes often trotted out at anti-park meetings. 

Louie believes much of the opposition is rooted in “white peoples’ ” mistrust and resentment of Aboriginal rights and title in the lands at stake. 

Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band is a proponent of a national park reserve in the South Okanagan. In early July he signed a memorandum of understanding that signalled the first formal steps toward the park’s creation in partnership with local First Nations. Photo: Jake Sherman

Though the bands that form the Syilx/Okanagan Nation are supportive of the park concept in principle, Louie says much work needs to be done before the distinct brown and yellow Parks Canada signs start appearing in Okanagan and Similkameen territory.

“We don’t have all the information. There needs to be hundreds of more meetings and discussions,” Louie says.

Gayton is taking the long view on the South Okanagan Similkameen National Park Reserve. He hopes to see it come to fruition in his lifetime.

“The average timeline for creating a national park is 30 years so we’re about halfway there,” Gayton says.

A sign in support of a proposed national park reserve in British Columbia’s southern interior, photographed along the Crowsnest Highway, between Osoyoos and Keremeos, B.C. Photo: Jake Sherman

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In 1920, Renee Ardill’s grandparents arrived in the Peace Valley with nothing more than a milk cow, saddle horse and team and wagon. They chose a piece of land on the banks of the Peace River, built a cabin, hunted moose and grew what they could.

“They built everything from the ground up,” Ardill told DeSmog Canada. “Imagine being able to pick your piece of land and make what you wanted out of it.”

The Ardill family has been here ever since, running a cattle ranch on the banks of the Peace. But their days could be numbered if BC Hydro’s Site C hydroelectric dam gets the go-ahead this fall from the provincial and federal governments.

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The panel tasked with reviewing the project found BC Hydro failed to prove that the energy from Site C would be needed within the timeframe set out in the proposal. The panel’s report, released in May, also found that there are cost-effective alternatives to building a new dam, but the province has failed to adequately investigate options such as geothermal.

If built, the dam will flood 107 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries — impacting 13,000 hectares of agricultural land, including flooding 3,800 hectares of farmland in the Agricultural Land Reserve, an area nearly twice the size of the city of Victoria.

That flooding would put the Ardill’s ranch underwater. Thirty-three other farm operations would also be affected by the project, according to the panel’s report.

“This is the best piece of land in the world. My grandpa picked a good spot. And I’m damned if I’m gonna give it up,” Ardill says. “Everybody now lives in the artificial world. People go to the grocery store and get their vegetables and they come wrapped in plastic. That’s not how it is. It comes from somewhere.”

Loss of Farmland in Peace Valley ‘Almost Tragic’: Agriculture Expert

Agriculture experts say the Peace Valley is home to some of the best land in the province, with the ability to produce fresh fruits and vegetables for a million people, according to agriculture expert Wendy Holm.

“It’s not about what’s economic today,” Holm told DeSmog Canada. “This is land that forms part of the commons. This is part of the natural capital of our country.”

Yet, the joint review panel’s report (PDF) found that loss of agricultural land would not be significant in the context of B.C. or western Canadian agricultural production, while acknowledging “this loss would be highly significant to the farmers who would bear the loss, and that financial compensation would not make up for the loss of a highly valued place and way of life.”

Eveline Wolterson, a soil scientist who gave expert testimony during the review process, says the panel missed the point in its analysis by looking at the current use of land (largely forage production) instead of the potential of the land.

“The reality is that the reason that land is in forage production is because most of it is owned by BC Hydro or it’s in the flood reserve, which means that at any time BC Hydro could expropriate those lands,” Wolterson told DeSmog Canada. “That has discounted the value of that land, as well as discounted the amount of money landowners are willing to invest in a piece of property.”

Wolterson points to the Okanagan Valley’s now booming wine industry as an example of how the panel has failed to think of the future.

“In mid 1970s, the likelihood of agricultural use of those [Okanagan] lands would likely have been low. But because we saved those lands and left them, the use of those lands is extremely high right now,” she says.

The productivity of the agricultural land in the Peace River Valley is unique not only in the region, but in British Columbia and Western Canada, Wolterson said.

Take potatoes, a main production commodity in the Lower Mainland, for example. In the Lower Mainland, yields are about 10 tonnes per hectare. In the Peace Valley, yields are 30 per cent more at 13 tonnes per hectare due to more daylight and ideal conditions in the east-west valley, Wolterson says.

“The area that they are proposing to flood is approximately equivalent to the agricultural land base in Delta, so it’d be like flooding all that land, taking it right out of production,” she says. “It’s almost tragic.”

The David Suzuki Foundation recently released a report looking at the economic benefits of keeping the Peace River region’s remaining farmland and nature intact beyond the market value of agriculture in the region.

The Peace Dividend found that the ecosystem services (such as providing clean air, clean water, carbon storage and habitat for wildlife) provided by farmland and nature in the Peace River Watershed are conservatively worth an estimated $7.9 billion to $8.6 billion a year.

Cantaloupes, Corn Grow in Peace Valley’s Unique Microclimate

Ken and Arlene Boon, owners of Bear Flats Farm and log home builders, know the value of the valley all too well. They regularly see mule deer, moose, elk, wolves and black and grizzly bears on their land.

The Boons host the annual Paddle for the Peace on their farm, where they can grow everything from corn to cantaloupes due to the unique microclimate in the valley. If the dam is built, they will lose their best farmland and their home.

In their submission to the panel, the Boons wrote: “As we write this submission, we feel like a prisoner trying to save his life by writing a statement that will hopefully save him from the death penalty.”

Ken Boon is fighting to save his farm from being flooded by the Site C dam. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

Standing in their garden eating fresh peas, they talk about the five generations of their family who’ve lived on this land.

The 1,100-megawatt Site C dam has been on the books for 30 years and was turned down by the B.C. Utilities Commission in the 1980s. This time around, the B.C. government has exempted the project from a utilities’ commission review, despite calls from local politicians and the joint review panel itself to have the project reviewed by the independent regulator.

“Life has to go on for us, because grandpa was told in the ’70s that he was going to have to move because they were going to build it,” Arlene says. “He passed away without seeing the project happen. I’m sure that our grandkids will be having the same discussion.”

Five generations of Arlene Boon’s family have enjoyed Bear Flats Farm. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

But she hopes her grandchildren won’t have to fight this fight again.

“Our push this time is to try kill it once and for all,” Arlene says.

Solar panels on the Boons property feed energy back to the electricity grid.

“You can generate electricity many ways, but you can only grow food one way,” Ken says. “What we can’t afford to do is to be flooding farmland any more.”

Ken Boon showcases his solar panels, which feed electricity back to the B.C. grid. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

The original Bear Flats Schoolhouse is on the Boons’ land, along with the Bear Flats Museum, which houses 5,000-year-old arrowheads and family heirlooms.

“It’s impossible to replace when you have this kind of history,” Arlene says. “I don’t want to be a millionaire. I just want to be happy on this land.”

For Esther and Poul Pedersen, it’s a similar story. Their 65 hectare (160-acre) property is right above where the Site C dam would be built and is within the zone that could slough into the reservoir.

Located just five minutes outside of Fort St. John, it’s the perfect place to raise horses and give riding lessons.

“It’s really hard to replace,” Esther says. “We feel that the valley is precious.”

To mitigate the lost value of agricultural economic activity, BC Hydro proposed a $20 million agricultural compensation program to support projects in the region, in addition to farm mitigation plans for directly affected agricultural operations.

But as Esther looks out over the Peace River Valley, she — like so many others — says what her family has is irreplaceable.

Esther Pedersen walks to a lookout on her land above the proposed site of the Site C dam. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

If you read its report closely, it appears the joint review panel did — at least on some level — grasp that sentiment. In coming to its conclusion that the earning potential of the Peace River Valley would appear to be highest as a reservoir, the panel notes it was unable to take into account “heartbreak (for residents who would be displaced from the land of their dreams).”

Question is: how do you put a price on heartbreak?

Back on the Ardill ranch, Renee just put $30,000 into fixing up an old barn.

“I think you have to go forward or give up. You can’t just sit there,” she says. “You have to act like you’re going to keep going or you give up. And I’m not very good at giving up.”

Renee and Dick Ardill at their ranch on the banks of the Peace River. Photo: Don Hoffmann

Ardill’s story is showcased on the StopSiteC website, which aims to gather petition signatures from citizens across the province. She wishes more British Columbians could see her part of the province.

“When you look at it on a map, it doesn’t look like all that big deal. But when you actually stand on the ground and look at it, it is a big deal,” she says.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.