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Silver Star Provincial Park - About to Disappear Completely?
Silver Star Provincial Park is located in the Okanagan Valley, 22 kilometers to the northeast of Vernon, British Columbia, Canada. It is a 5573 hectare (13,765 acres) park encompassing the 1915 metre (6280 feet) rounded peak of Silver Star Mountain.
The park used to be much larger (originally 8939 hectares). It has been fractured, and has shrunk considerably in the past two decades due to commercial interests, and may soon disappear completely if steps are not taken to limit privatization and development in and around the park. B.C. Parks has repeatedly demonstrated that it wants to hand over the entire park to the private ski resort, but it has had to accomplish this in stages so as not to incite public outrage.
Activities in the Park
The park is mainly used for winter recreational activities including cross country skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, and tobogganing. The Sovereign Lake Nordic Club, a non-profit community ski club, maintains and operates the Sovereign Lake Nordic Center, which is inside the park, about 4 km from the ski resort village. The club grooms approximately 50 km of trails inside the park for classic and skate skiing, and offers cross country ski programs and lessons for all ages and abilities. Ski and snowshoe rentals are offered at the lodge.
Location Map:
Ski Resort
Alpine skiing is a popular winter activity immediately adjacent to the park, in the Controlled Recreation Area (CRA) that used to be part of the Class A Provincial Park. Silver Star Mountain Resort operates several chairlifts and surface lifts inside the CRA, and also maintains approximately 55 kilometers of cross country trails. Silver Star Mountain Resort's cross country ski trail system joins with Sovereign Lake's trail system, making for a total of about 105 km of nordic trails.
Other winter activities at the resort include ice skating, tubing, sleigh rides, and snowmobile tours. Summer activities include mountain biking, chairlift rides, and paintball.
Real Estate Development
Since 1982 (when the resort village area was deleted from the park), real estate development has progressed steadily to the point where there are now many hotels, condominiums, and vacation homes in the base area of the ski resort. Silver Star Mountain Resort is heavily involved in real estate development, and currently there are many homesites and a large hotel under construction in the former park.
Over the years, large portions of the park have been deleted and added to the Alpine Ski Resort's Controlled Recreation Area. This land, no longer classified as Class A parkland, is classified as Crown Land, and does not fall under the jurisdiction of B.C. Parks, but rather under the Ministry of Tourism Culture and the Arts (MTCA).
This government ministry has been delegated incredible powers, and is the ministry at the center of just about every ski resort controversy in British Columbia, including Jumbo Glacier (new ski area proposed near Invermere), Big White (requesting removal of Big White Ecological Reserve lands and water extraction from Kettle River tributaries), Crystal Mountain (in Westbank, B.C.), The Garibaldi at Squamish (Brohm Ridge, south of Whistler), and many more. MTCA and its predecessor, "Land and Water B.C.", have been instrumental in assisting Silver Star ski resort in its bids to have lands deleted from Silver Star Provincial Park.
Map of Silver Star Provincial Park (Courtesy of B.C. Parks)
This is the map that B.C. Parks was too embarrassed to put on their Silver Star Provincial Park website since it shows how dysfunctional and fractured the park has become. It also appears that B.C. Parks doesn't even know how small the park actually is, stating that the park is 6092 hectares, when in fact only 5573 hectares remain (as per O.I.C. # 636). Past deletions have demonstrated how eager B.C. Parks is to hand this park over to private interests, but it has had to do it in progressive steps (with very little public input) to avoid public outrage.
As you can see from the map above, the park has actually been split into two pieces, as a result of the 1982 deletion of the village area (approximately 188 hectares), the 1992 deletion of the alpine ski runs and World Cup Nordic trails (approximately 2700 hectares), and then the 2001 deletion in the southeast corner of the golf course lands (510 hectares).
Deletion of the golf course lands in the southeast corner resulted in the park being split into two parts, essentially cutting off public access to the 580 hectare East Site (the triangular piece on the east boundary). According to the current Resort Master Plan, Silver Star Mountain Resort intends to develop the Trinity Bowl ski pod, at which time they will likely ask for deletion of the entire East Site.
Community Watersheds Threatened
Silver Star Provincial Park was established not only to protect the unique subalpine environment and its associated recreational opportunities, but also to protect the headwaters of several community watersheds (Vance Creek, Coldstream Creek, Fortune Creek, Deafies Creek, BX Creek, and Putnam Creek have their headwaters on Silver Star Mountain). As a Provincial Park, strict controls could be placed on development to ensure responsible, sustainable recreation in the park.
Due to the deletion of large sections of the park around the alpine ski area to encourage commercial development, several community watersheds now have their water quality threatened. Vance Creek and Coldstream Creek are impacted by sewage effluent from the resort, and BX Creek is impacted by stormwater runoff from real estate development.
Silver Star - Whose Mountain?
68 years after the establishment of the park, what is perhaps most troubling, is that in practical terms, the private ski resort controls the majority of the recreational land on the mountain. If you look closely at the map above, you'll notice that the brown squiggly lines in the West Site, which delineate the nordic ski trails and snowmobile trails in the park, comprise an area of only about 1200 hectares. Since the resort controls close to 3000 hectares in the Controlled Recreation Area, this means that for all practical purposes, the privately owned resort controls 70% of the recreational land on the mountain. This adds a new perspective to the resort's marketing slogan, "Silver Star - My Mountain".
Fee Simple Real Estate Prioritized
"My Mountain", implies ownership, which of course points to owning a piece of the mountain. Fee simple real estate sales appear to be the resort's main objective, and property development is designed to maximize real estate asking prices, as many of the offerings are promoted as "ski in - ski out", with many properties located on what used to be alpine ski runs. Even the 1991 World Cup cross country trails deleted from the park are now slated for development into condos and hotels.
Golf Course
When the Silver Star Mountain Resort Golf Course was first proposed in the mid-1990's, the opening date was expected to be June 2000. As of October, 2008, the golf course still does not exist; however, 4 clearcuts in the shape of fairways have been recently logged. 5 more are slated to be logged at any time. These clearcuts inside the former provincial park will not be used for golfing any time soon, yet they will be irrigated......with sewage effluent! Click the You Tube link below to view a recent news clip about the golf course fiasco.
510 hectares was deleted from Silver Star Provincial Park in April 2001, specifically to allow the resort to build a golf course. The course was never built, likely due to the fact that it is not commercially viable. The golfing season would be too short, insects would be a problem, and it would have to compete with almost 20 other golf courses within an hour's drive.
Was the real reason for deleting the lands in the southeast corner of the park simply to enable real estate expansion by using the fairways for sewage effluent disposal? It appears as if this is the case. The golf course fiasco makes a mockery of our Provincial Park system, and sets a dangerous precedent that may allow future park boundary amendments in other B.C. Parks with no accountability to follow through on promises made.
To learn more about the proposed Silver Star Mountain Resort golf course, click the Golf Course menu and sub-menu tabs.
Sovereign Lake Threatened
Will the Sovereign Lake Cross Country ski area be the next part of Silver Star Provincial Park to be deleted? B.C. Parks has asked for proposals from commercial and non-commercial individuals and organizations for fixed-roof accommodations at Sovereign Lake. Thus far, there have been no proposals submitted, but there is nothing to stop any private company from proposing a hotel for up to 100 beds (to start). Options for future expansion are open to negotiation.
Will the ski resort submit a proposal to build a lodge and hotel at Sovereign Lake and ask for more land to be deleted from the park? Only time will tell......
