Rehabilitating Hilda Lake Random Camping Area

This is the ‘bush party place’ left with broken glass, burned out campers and all sorts of results of obviously irresponsible behaviours and disrespect for the land. There just is no excuse for this.

A huge clean up and accounting project was undertaken, and it is a pleasant place now, still needing lots of ‘small piece’ cleanup.

This was someone’s idea of a good use of the resources here: hack at at live tall mature pine tree and leave it to suffer.

Our fire area had a second fire spot, no rock rim or metal container, right on top of live roots, or maybe formally live roots.

We started to pick up pieces to finish burning them in the proper fire ring and noticed lots and lots of nails.

So out came a garbage bag and the shovel.

Then, with all the nails we could find and the junk they were attached to in the bag, we brought over some sand from the roadway, and then spread some forest floor decaying matter on the spot.

And then we turned to clean up and remake the rock rimed fire ring. And there were more nails and broken rocks … and a second heavier garbage bag filled with the mess.

Done we had two heavy garbage bags of mess, and a lot neater fire ring.

The brown bag was the start and finish effort. We’ve kept picking up broken glass shards and debris and detritus from around this and the other campsites. Into the brown paper bag. And it along with the fire pit mess of nails, metal, glass and pieces of half burned wood goes out with us into an appropriate garbage receptacle.

It can be clean if everyone who enjoys a few days here does the same, cleaning up, collecting garbage and hauling out more garbage than they themselves make.

My challenge is that each of you, who can use Canadian Parks this year, document your stories with photos or video of you clean up contributions.

Tell the story, be the story, make us all proud.