There is a quiet but amazing wilderness in the Cassiar and Skeena Mountains in northern B.C. Centered roughly around the headwaters of the Finlay River, it sits nestled immediately south of sprawling Spatsizi and the other amazing “Stikine Country Parks” and just off the southwest flank of the huge Muskwa-Kechika Management Area.
Although relatively unknown to most British Columbians (to get there is almost 400 kilometres on gravel - one way!) the Finlay-Omineca contains rich wildlife habitat, pristine lakes, free-flowing rivers and stunning scenery that rivals and is equally worthy to its better-known neighbouring areas.
B.C. is a land of famous rivers and many of our great ones get their start here along the Continental Divide in the Finlay-Omineca country. Stand on one mountaintop and you are at the common birthplace of the Fraser, Peace and Skeena river systems. Follow ridges farther north and you see the first trickles of the Stikine and Liard. Fly westward across the peaks of Tatlatui Park and you’re at the “Sacred Headwaters”: the source of the Skeena, Stikine and Nass Rivers.
Much of the Finlay-Omineca has been designated Special Management Zones in the regional land-use plans. Some of it is also underlain with mineral wealth. CPAWS is not opposed to mining but wants to ensure that “special management” is indeed a special way of doing business. It must be sensitive to the needs of wildlife, aquatic habitat and, very importantly, the First Nations people who make this area home.
CPAWS has long-standing relationships with the Kaska community of Kwadacha (a.k.a Ft. Ware) and is currently assisting the Takla Lake First Nation with the development of their land-use plan – peoples whose visions for their land were not adequately incorporated into the regional land use plans of the 1990s.
Resource development in these Special Management Areas, where and when appropriate, should not simply be “business as usual” be it mining, forestry or energy development. With high mineral prices, CPAWS continues to keep an eye on any unnecessary expansion of the mineral exploration footprint into the remote and beautiful Finlay-Omineca wilderness.
In 2007, the first Kemess North mine plan – the one would have destroyed Amazay Lake under a thick blanket of mine tailings - was quashed by government after strong opposition. CPAWS will help monitor a new and hopefully far more benign proposal for the same copper-gold deposit that may come forward soon. We will also work with First Nations to identify areas of high conservation importance.
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