Residents of the Lardeau and backcountry user groups are protesting the government’s impending closure of a road that has existed for about 130 years.
The Ministry of Forests plans to deactivate the Rady Creek forest service road at Trout Lake, which is one of the prime access routes to Silver Cup Ridge, home to a popular trail. A tender call for a contractor closes this afternoon.
Tracey Chala, who grew up in the Kootenays and has a cabin at Trout Lake, said the road is heavily used by locals and tourists for both motorized and non-motorized recreation.
“There’s horseback riders, hikers, mountain bikers, adaptive mountain bikers,” she said. “All sorts of people rely on that road for their recreation, as well as for the economy of our town.”
“This is a very, very popular spot where people go to make memories, make videos, write blogs, do all sorts of things. I think it’s worth fighting for, and I think that’s why there’s been such pushback.”
She said the local campground is often filled with people who are heading up the Rady Creek road on ATVs and dirt bikes. Their visits and the camping fees they pay are a key source of income for Trout Lake, she said.
What the community lacks in amenities like a library or rec centre is made up for by close access to the backcountry, Chala added.
She is dismayed the road’s history hasn’t been a bigger part of the conversation. It was built in the 1890s to access mining claims during a short-lived silver rush to the area. That history is appreciated by locals and visitors and is one of the main draws to the remote area, she said.
Lack of consultation
Amber Lane, the executive director of the BC Snowmobile Federation, said the provincial government has cited geotechnical and public safety concerns for closing the road. Her organization has commissioned its own geotechnical review, which has yet to be completed. But she thinks it may be possible to maintain recreational access while addressing the concerns.
She believes the road was designated as a forest service road in the 1990s, but it has received minimal maintenance and has never been kept to an industrial standard. It has no bridges or major culverts. The lower five kilometers have been used for logging, while the upper 4.4 kilometers goes into the alpine and accesses mining claims and Silver Cup Ridge.
The government’s plans to deactivate the road have been known since 2021. Lane said there was enough of a public outcry at that time that the Ministry of Forests put the matter on hold for further public consultation, but that never came.
“There, to our knowledge, has not been any further consultation,” she said. “There’s not been any consultation with any of the recreation groups in the area or the community of Trout Lake.”
Instead, a sign went up on the road stating that it was due to be deactivated this fall. The Trout Lake Recreation Club has applied to maintain the road to a recreational standard under a different ministry. The BC Snowmobile Federation supported the application and asked that it be expedited. But Lane said the government’s response was that there is no legal process to convert a forest service road into a recreational asset.
Lane said her group finds that concerning on a provincial level.
“If we want small historic communities that are usually participating in traditional industry to be able to transition into the recreational economy, we currently do not have that mechanism in place,” she said.
She feels the government also needs to consider how certain roads came to be, how long they have been there, and if they are part of the community infrastructure and local history. All of which applies to the Rady Creek road, she said.
Lane said Recreation Sites and Trails BC, which is a branch of the Ministry of Environment, has recognized the issue but deactivation ultimately lies with the Ministry of Forests, which has insisted that its decision is final.
She said maintaining access to backcountry recreation could be an election issue, especially as traditional resource-based industries struggle.
Round-the-clock security
Colin Stuart of the Four Wheel Drive Association of BC said closing the road will prevent search and rescue from reaching certain sections of Silver Cup Ridge and make it harder for wildfire crews to reach certain areas.
While Stuart lives on Vancouver Island, he has a personal connection to the Rady Creek road: it was where his friends Matthew Yeomans and Stacey Tourout fatally crashed their vehicle last year.
“I was there,” he said. “So, I’ve kind of made a commitment to do everything I possibly can to keep that road open. They wouldn’t want that road closed.”
If the road is closed, public access to Silver Cup Ridge won’t be prevented entirely, but it will become much more difficult. Stuart said it will “completely annihilate” any recreation in the area by four-wheel drive.
The Ministry of Forests said it was unable to comment on the road closure due to the provincial election called Tuesday. Government policy restricts media communications during the campaign period.
But a tender package for contractors acknowledges: “This deactivation project is contentious and well known to the public.” It adds the Ministry of Forests will provide round-the-clock security while the deactivation operation is underway.
The tender call is on the government’s BCBid site. Work is supposed to start on Oct. 1 and finish Nov. 1.
