Star Trek’s mission statement is to boldly go where no man has gone before but that’s certainly not the case for Stawamus Chief Provincial Park, where the new Star Trek movie is being filmed.
The park attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year and it’s completely free to enjoy the green space. In fact, pay parking was removed in 2011 so I’m betting many park users don’t even cough up a nickel to appreciate its beauty.
So when film companies want to spend money to do their thing it should be celebrated, not scolded like a small group of locals did last week.
BC Parks has had massive cuts since the Christy Clark government came into power and very little has been re-invested since. There are only 11 full-time park rangers to serve the more than 32 million acres of land of BC Parks, way down from 27 in 2001.
The B.C. government cut $2.5 million from the parks budget in 2009 and over $600,000 in 2014. Recent years have seen more than 40 parks vehicles cancelled and both gas and travel budgets have been slashed. It was reported that some parks areas don’t even have the funds for toilet paper.
The fact that climbers were inconvenienced by the filming schedule is unfortunate, but film crews seemed pretty reasonable. They didn’t film on weekends or holidays and a BC Parks rep supervised all work done. Many trails in the park remained open during the filming and a park liaison was on hand to assist with public access.
According to the film’s location manager, unlike what was incorrectly reported in other media, no trees were cut down and only two sections of dead limbs were removed.
We all love our beautiful park but they aren’t maintained by magic. It takes serious capital to run and ensure these areas are safe and enjoyable for everyone. So to look down on opportunities to increase cash flow to our struggling BC Parks system is insulting.
A few days of minor inconveniences to ensure funding for so many to enjoy what the great outdoors has to offer is a worthwhile sacrifice.
We all want our parks to live long and prosper but without money coming in they could very well end up like Spock at the end of Star Trek II – dead.
