MacMillan Provincial Park is a

provincial park Ischigualasto Provincial Park A provincial park (or territorial park) is a park administered by one of the provinces of a country, as opposed to a national park. They are similar to state parks in other countries. They are typically open to the ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, Canada. Located west of

Qualicum Beach Qualicum Beach () is a town located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. In the 2021 census, it had a population of 9,303. It is situated at the foot of Mount Arrowsmith, along the Strait of Georgia on Vancouver Island's northeastern ...

and east of

Port Alberni Port Alberni () is a city located on Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The city lies within the Alberni Valley at the head of the Alberni Inlet, Vancouver Island's longest inlet. Port Alberni currently has a total popu ...

, the park straddles Highway 4 and the

Island Rail Corridor The Island Corridor, previously the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway (E&N Railway), is a railway operation on Vancouver Island. It is owned by the Island Corridor Foundation, a registered charity. The railway line is in length from Victoria, Brit ...

in central

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...

. It is nestled on the western shore of Cameron Lake, and protects the delta of the Cameron River. The park is home to a famous, stand of ancient

Douglas fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is the tallest tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Or ...

, known as Cathedral Grove, which draws visitors from all over the world. The park provides the only highway-accessible protected

old-growth An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without Disturbance (ecology), disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organizati ...

Douglas-fir forest in British Columbia. In 2007 Cathedral Grove made the short list on

CBC CBC may refer to: Media * Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster ** CBC Television ** CBC Radio One ** CBC Music ** ...

's competition

Seven Wonders of Canada The Seven Wonders of Canada was a 2007 competition sponsored by CBC Television's ''CBC News: The National, The National'' and CBC Radio One's ''Sounds Like Canada''. They sought to determine Canada's "seven wonders" by receiving nominations from vi ...

Flora and fauna

The forests in the park are transitional between the drier Coastal Douglas-fir Biogeoclimatic Zone (CDF), which characterizes the east coast of Vancouver Island, and the wetter Coastal Western Hemlock Biogeoclimatic Zone (CWH), found along the island's west coast. Some of the trees are more than 800 years old and in

circumference In geometry, the circumference () is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. The circumference is the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to a line segment. More generally, the perimeter is the curve length arou ...

. The flora of the park is typical of the region, and includes stands of old-growth tree species including

western redcedar ''Thuja plicata'' is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the family Cupressaceae, native to the Pacific Northwest of North America. Its common name is western redcedar in the U.S. or western red cedar in the UK, and it is also called pacific re ...

and

bigleaf maple ''Acer macrophyllum'', the bigleaf maple or Oregon maple, is a large deciduous tree in the genus '' Acer''. It is native to western North America. In addition to uses by animals, it is of some culinary and woodworking interest. Description Big ...

(found south of the highway),

western hemlock ''Tsuga heterophylla'', the western hemlock or western hemlock-spruce, is a species of hemlock native to the northwest coast of North America, with its northwestern limit on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and its southeastern limit in northern ...

, and

grand fir ''Abies grandis'' (grand fir, giant fir, lowland white fir, great silver fir, western white fir, Vancouver fir, or Oregon fir) is a fir native to northwestern North America, occurring at altitudes of sea level to . It is a major constituent of t ...

. The

understory In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the Canopy (biology), forest ca ...

(term for the area of the forest that grows in the shade the forest canopy) includes red

huckleberry Huckleberry is a name used in North America for several plants in the family Ericaceae, in two closely related genera: ''Vaccinium'' and ''Gaylussacia''. Nomenclature The name 'huckleberry' is a North American variation of the English dialectal ...

salal ''Gaultheria shallon'' is an evergreen shrub in the heather family (Ericaceae), native to western North America. Common names include salal (), shallon, or (mainly in Britain) gaultheria. Description ''Gaultheria shallon'' is tall, sprawli ...

, and

devil's club Devil's club, Devil's walking stick or S’áxt’ (''Oplopanax horridus'', Araliaceae; syn. ''Echinopanax horridus'', ''Fatsia horrida'') is a large understory shrub native to the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, but also disjunct on isla ...

. The park is home to several species of birds, including

owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...

s and

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family (biology), family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar and the extreme ...

s; as well as such mammals as

deer A deer (: deer) or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae (informally the deer family). Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae (which includes, among others, muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer) ...

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

elk The elk (: ''elk'' or ''elks''; ''Cervus canadensis'') or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. ...

and

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...

. The Cameron River and Cameron Lake are stocked with rainbow, brown, and cutthroat

trout Trout (: trout) is a generic common name for numerous species of carnivorous freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of which are members of the subfamily Salmoninae in the ...

History

Indigenous peoples are believed to have used the area for ceremonial purposes prior to the arrival of European settlers in the mid-19th century. Evidence of "culturally modified trees", western redcedar trees which have had their bark stripped off, have been found and dated as far back as AD 1137. The name "Cathedral Grove" is reputed to have originated from the

Governor General of Canada The governor general of Canada () is the federal representative of the . The monarch of Canada is also sovereign and head of state of 14 other Commonwealth realms and resides in the United Kingdom. The monarch, on the Advice (constitutional la ...

, the

Viscount Willingdon A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. The status and any domain held by a viscount is a viscounty. In the case of French viscounts, the title is so ...

, in 1928, and appeared in correspondence to the provincial government in the 1920s. Cathedral Grove was a well-known tourist stop in the 1920s and 1930s, long before its protection. Over the following quarter century the public pressured and petitioned the provincial government to acquire the lands known as Cathedral Grove, and for the property and timber owners to donate the land. H.R. MacMillan, who had served as first chief forester of British Columbia and became a well-known forester and logging industrialist as head of the H.R. MacMillan Export Company (later

MacMillan Bloedel MacMillan Bloedel Limited was a Canadian forestry company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company was formed in 1951 as MacMillan and Bloedel through the merger of Bloedel, Stewart and Welch with the H. R. MacMillan Export Com ...

), after years of refusing to consider the public demands, in 1944 donated the 136 hectares of his company's timber holdings "for the perpetual enjoyment of the public in recognition of the unique stand of trees." In 1947 the area was established as a Class A provincial park. Logging of the remainder of the valley upstream of the park throughout the late 20th century resulted in significant damage to the forest adjacent to the Cameron River. Extreme runoff from a 1990 tropical storm resulted in extensive flooding and streambank erosion, and 6 hectares of tree blowdown. In 1997 high winds caused extensive damage to the grove and surrounding forest. In the 1990s BC Parks initiated a trail rehabilitation program to prevent further damage from park visitation. The grove suffered more storm damage in December 2018 and November 2024.

Parking lot controversy

Visitor parking has traditionally been along both sides of the narrow highway just west of the Cameron River bridge, a condition that by the 1990s was judged to be dangerous for tour buses, cars, and loaded logging trucks.Kerry Joy, ''A Brief History of Cathedral Grove, MacMillan Provincial Park'', Forest History Newsletter 2005.
Retrieved 2011-10-13

Gallery

Cathedral Grove 2006.jpg, Cathedral Grove in 2006

References

External links

*
BC Parks webpage for MacMillan Provincial Park - master plan 1992
(including maps and photos)

Cathedral Grove, British Columbia. {{DEFAULTSORT:Macmillan Provincial Park Regional District of Nanaimo Provincial parks of British Columbia 1947 establishments in British Columbia Protected areas established in 1947 Pacific temperate rainforests Forest parks Old-growth forests