Village of Lion's Bay criticized for restricting access to public trails

Village of Lions Bay

A Metro Vancouver community is making moves to limit public access to trails, citing wildfire risks, but those who travel there to use the trails say the closure is simply a smoke screen.

On Thursday, August 24, The Village of Lions Bay, which is north of West Vancouver along the Sea to Sky Highway, announced that it would close visitor parking and access to trails in and around the community, including the popular Tunnel Bluffs viewpoint. And that doesn’t sit well with people who are critical of the community for its penchant for restricting access to public lands.

The decision by Lions Bays

“Due to unprecedented hiker pressure in our backcountry areas, we must unfortunately take this temporary measure to reduce the risk of a human-caused wildfire,” wrote the Village of Lions Bay in a press release.

“Unlike other communities such as Kelowna and Yellowknife where fires started kilometres away, a fire on trails could be only hundreds of metres away from homes,” the Village wrote.

Breaking: Trailheads, visitor parking closed. Tonight in The Watershed:https://t.co/19JXl6l1KL #LionsBayWatershed #LionsBay #hikers

— The Watershed: Lions Bay's community news source (@LB_Watershed) August 25, 2023

The region is further impacted by a water shortage and, unlike other Metro Vancouver communities, relies only upon its watershed above the village.”A fire in this area would contaminate the water supply with disastrous consequences for our small community,” it added.

“This decision was not taken lightly, and we look forward to welcoming hikers back when conditions are safe for everybody after we get some much-needed rain,” Acting Mayor of Lions Bay Jaime Cunliffe said.

“We wanted to get the message out so that hikers don’t drive all the way here only to find they can’t go hiking.”

Public backlash

That announcement doesn’t sit well with folks who use the trails.

In an email to Daily Hive, R Benson wrote that he was “extremely concerned” by the move. “It’s … unjustified when no such measure has even been recommended by any other authority in this part of the province owing to wildfire risk,” said Benson.

“We hiked the Lions this week, where conditions were exactly the same as the Grouse Grind and Seymour Watershed – grounds for caution, but certainly not closure.” And Benson plans to coordinate a hike in Lion’s Bay “simply on principle” once the smoke clears.

Gary Parsons also reached Daily Hive by email with his concerns that the Village of Lions Bay is being exclusionary. “People of Lions Bay live in expensive houses and feel they own the area while beaches and trails belong to the people of BC,” he wrote. “Lions Bay took advantage of COVID-19 to close its beaches and trails to public in the past. This has to stop,” he said.

On Reddit Vancouver, two separate threads (1) (2) about the closure are full of complaints, and many see this as just the latest attempt by the community to restrict access to public lands.

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Daily Hive has reached out to the Village of Lions Bay Deputy Mayor Jaime Cunliffe for a response and will update this story.

More to come…

With files from Daily Hive Staff