The Avatar Apparition

All photos taken on May 17, 2022.

Sometimes, an idea sounds better in your mind, than when you actually put it in motion. Just such an idea was driving to Avatar Grove, a mere 12 km away from our cottage.

After our morning hike and a bit of lunch, we set off by car to see this phenomenon. The turnoff road looked fine for about 1 km and then the road turned into a beast. It was a logging road, which after the spring melt and recent heavy rains and pounding logging truck traffic was pocked with deep water filled potholes. In short, it was not fit for anything but a 4 wheel drive vehicle that you care not a whit about.

Meanwhile 4 idiots and 1 Benji the Wonder Dog attempted to navigate it in a Prius. Not a good plan. The scenery at 16 k/h (10 m/h) was spectacular……ly slow. About 9 km. in, we stopped and decided to turn around. Just as we did, a newer Jeep Cherokee came down the road. We chatted with them briefly and they advised the Grove was closed. Well, aren’t we the perfect idiots. Back to Port Renfrew, we crept.

waiting to cross the one-lane Gordon River bridge

Gordon River

GPS says we are in the middle of nowhere – YUP, that sounds about right

Not a road for a Prius!!!!

The 3 other people in the car would shout HOLE! every time our car came close to one. Thanks Captain Obvious. In the meantime, Benji the Wonder Dog remained silent.

Here is what we missed.

A scant 10 minute walk off a logging road near the BC’s West Coast town of Port Renfrew is Avatar Grove, a stand of old cedars so majestic, powerful and gnarled that T. F. Watt said he and his colleagues from the Ancient Forest Alliance “were running around like kids in a candy story” when they found it in 2009. (Globe & Mail, July 23/11).

Watt, along with the co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, Ken Wu, had been searching for just such an iconic stand of trees, one that would dramatize and catalyze enough awareness of old-growth forests to prevent further logging of the tiny remnant that still exists on southern Vancouver Island. Avatar Grove, as this stand was named, just might accomplish such an ambitious feat. Indeed, the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, the BC Ministry of Forests and the company that had the right to log Avatar Grove, Teal Cedar Products Ltd, all concurred that the stand was so sensational that it should be protected.

Photo and article Credits: ancientforestalliance.org

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