Summary
The Rainbow, Jordan and Frisby valleys in British Columbia’s rare inland temperate rainforest are home to endangered species and ancient trees.
Two logging companies hold licences to log in the old-growth valleys, while the government agency BC Timber Sales has operating areas there.
A 2019 proposal to permanently protect 10,500 hectares in the three valleys as a provincial park has gained renewed interest as Revelstoke city council announced in February that it supports increased conservation of the critically endangered inland temperate rainforest.
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Toby Spribille trickles water onto a rare dark grey lichen that looks like a crumpled piece of paper someone set on fire and left to smoulder. It’s a bright summer day in the Rainbow Valley rainforest, in British Columbia’s southern interior. Sunbeams slant through ancient cedar trees as tall as 20-storey buildings. Moss unfurls across the forest floor like bright green shag carpet. But the small, shrivelled lichen on a stunted hemlock tree is what Spribille, a scientist, is eager to show us: smoker’s lung lichen. “It looks a little bit like the pictures on the warning packages of cigarettes,” he says with dark humour, noting the lung lichen is perfectly healthy even though it’s almost black.
As Spribille mimics rainy weather with his water bottle, the lichen begins to uncrumple, as if it’s waking up and stretching. Despite its name, smoker’s lung lichen thrives only when the air is pure. Spribille is amazed to find the lichen, which is at risk of extinction in Canada and other countries, so far south. He peers at the lichen’s underside: ashy black with irregular white polka dots. The specimen, he declares, is “utterly spectacular.”
Spribille, who teaches at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, is one of the world’s leading lichenologists. He’s tall and sturdy, with a greyish blonde ponytail, black-rimmed glasses and the authoritative enthusiasm of David Attenborough narrating a film. Late one night in 2017, Spribille had been surfing Google Earth the way some people binge Netflix. For hours, he searched for somewhere he could study lichens in B.C.’s globally rare inland temperate rainforest. Lying in scattered valleys in the Columbia and Rocky mountains, the rainforest is home to trees more than 1,000 years old and harbours an extraordinary diversity of species, including the world’s only deep-snow caribou.
An inland temperate rainforest, far from the sea, is found only in three places on the planet: Russia’s far east, southern Siberia and British Columbia. The inland temperate rainforest in B.C. is home to endangered species and cedar trees more than 1,000 years old.
But all Spribille saw in valley after valley were checkerboards of logging clearcuts and fragments of forest too small to support many sensitive species.
Then his cursor landed on a dark green U-shaped valley about 40 kilometres north of Revelstoke, B.C., a resource and tourism town in the Columbia Mountains. As Spribille zoomed in, he saw the trees had conspicuously large crowns; he guessed they were cedars at least half a century old. Silvery streams meandered through the valley, which had no clearcuts and no roads. “Oh my word, this must be quite the valley,” he remembers thinking. “I just couldn’t believe it.” The valleys on each side, folded into the mountains like green origami, were also unlogged and unloaded, a rarity in a landscape fractured by decades of industrial forestry.
The discovery of three adjacent intact old-growth valleys has led to increasing calls to halt logging and protect the area once and for all. For Spribille and others, it’s clear the valleys are utterly unique.
When Spribille and other biologists took a small motor boat across the Revelstoke hydro-electric reservoir the following year and hiked into two of the valleys, Rainbow and Frisby, they found ancient forests so luxuriant they seemed to be from primeval times. Grove after grove of enormous red cedar trees stretched unbroken for kilometres. Seas of feathery ferns lapped at their waists. Supersized skunk cabbage leaves brushed their chests and thickets of spiky devil’s club towered over their heads.
On research trips to the Rainbow and Frisby valleys in B.C.’s rare inland temperate rainforest, Amber Peters and other biologists found habitat suitable for two dozen bird, reptile and mammal species at risk of extinction, including wolverine, grizzly bear, short-eared owl and western painted turtle.
Streams fed by mountain icefields cooled and moistened the valleys, boosting biological diversity. One mycologist found 112 species of mushrooms in the Frisby Valley — in just five hours. On a single trip, a botanist documented 49 species of mosses and 182 species of vascular plants. Biologists found habitat suitable for two dozen bird, reptile and mammal species at risk of extinction — wolverine, grizzly bear, short-eared owl and western painted turtle among them.
Spribille and a colleague documented hundreds of lichen species, including rare and at-risk species with evocative names like Methuselah’s beard and cryptic paw. “We also found species new to science,” Spribille says. “They haven’t been named yet.”
Spribille’s latest research trip to the Rainbow Valley, in July 2023, was organized by the Valhalla Wilderness Society, a non-profit group that aims to protect Canada’s vanishing inland temperate rainforest and its wildlife. These incredibly rare rainforests grow far from the ocean and exist in only three places on the planet: Russia’s far east, southern Siberia and here, in British Columbia.
In 2019, Valhalla put together a proposal to permanently protect 10,500 hectares of rare and undisturbed ecosystems in the Rainbow Valley and adjacent Frisby and Jordan valleys as a provincial park. But the inland temperate rainforest valleys, which sit on Crown land, remain unprotected and are open to industrial logging.
The old-growth Rainbow, Frisby and Jordan valleys in B.C.’s rare inland temperate rainforest are unprotected and open to industrial logging. Valhalla Wilderness Society has put together a proposal to protect the valleys in a provincial park (outlined in green). Map: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal
Two forestry companies, Downie Timber Ltd. and Stella-Jones Inc., hold operating licences in the valleys, according to the B.C. forests ministry. The provincial government agency BC Timber Sales, which manages about one-fifth of the province’s allowable cut, also has operating areas in the three valleys.
Neither of the forestry companies responded to The Narwhal’s emails and phone calls, while the B.C. Forests Ministry says there are no plans for BC Timber Sales to log “at this time,” with both private and government-run operations currently avoiding harvesting here.
But the ministry also says the province has not recommended the three valleys for park protection. That’s led to a renewed push to protect the area.
“I cannot single-handedly influence British Columbia forest policy,” Spribille says, adding he doesn’t see that as his job as a scientist. “But one of the things I can do is highlight areas where there are jewels still intact.” The Rainbow and Frisby valleys are two such ecological gems, he says. “There’s no reason on earth why we should go in and log.”
Lichenologist Toby Spribille has studied the Rainbow and Frisby valleys and says there’s ‘no reason on earth’ to log them. Spribille and other scientists have found extraordinary biodiversity and species new to science in the valleys, which form part of B.C.’s disappearing inland temperate rainforest.
Spribille says it’s likely rare and endangered lichens, and possibly species new to science, will also be found in the Jordan Valley. Satellite imagery shows the Jordan Valley has the same attributes as Frisby and Rainbow; it’s cooled by icefields, has large tree tops indicative of ancient trees and is unlogged and almost entirely unroaded. But unlike Rainbow and Frisby, which scientists can easily hike into from the Revelstoke reservoir, the Jordan Valley’s old-growth inland temperate rainforest is hard to access.
While provincial support to protect the region remains elusive, Valhalla’s efforts were recently given a boost by Revelstoke city council, which passed a resolution in February pointing out the inland temperate rainforest is under-represented in protected area networks and saying it supports increased conservation efforts for the Rainbow-Jordan wilderness and the inland temperate rainforest. Ktunaxa Nation council also supports Valhalla’s proposal to protect the three valleys.
Biologist Amber Peters is working with Valhalla Wilderness Society to secure permanent protection for the Rainbow, Frisby and Jordan valleys in B.C.’s rare, old-growth inland temperate rainforest.
Revelstoke council noted local governments throughout B.C. “bear direct responsibility and expense for responding to the downstream impacts of deforestation,” acknowledging old-growth forests provide benefits like climate regulation and mitigation, fresh water and biodiversity conservation — and reduce the risk of hazards such as wildfires, flooding and landslides. At the annual Union of BC Municipalities meeting in September, Revelstoke will ask other municipalities to support increased protection for the Rainbow-Jordan wilderness and the inland temperate rainforest.
B.C. rainforest is home to world’s only deep-snow caribou
A century ago, Canada was home to an estimated 1.3 million hectares of inland temperate rainforest. Today, less than five per cent of the core, old forest still stands. So little of the ancient rainforest remains that scientists and ecologists warn the ecosystem is close to collapse.
That collapse has already begun. The International Union for Conservation of Nature — the global authority on the status of the natural world and measures necessary to safeguard it — lists B.C.’s inland temperate rainforest as “critically endangered,” posing existential risks to wildlife. Biologists are building fake old-growth trees to save endangered rainforest bats, while pregnant deep-snow caribou are helicoptered to mountain-top pens until their newborn calves are old enough to stand a better chance of survival in the fractured landscape.
B.C.’s deep-snow caribou get their name because in late winter they eat hair lichens they reach by splaying their feet to walk on top of metres-deep snow. But as Canada’s inland temperate rainforest has disappeared, so have the caribou that depend on the rainforest for shelter and food. “Not enough has been protected,” Amber Peters, a biologist who works for the Valhalla Wilderness Society, tells The Narwhal. Peters, who guides a reporter and photojournalist through the Rainbow Valley, has a no-nonsense attitude and an amiable yet commanding presence. She carries a can of bear spray clipped to the front of her backpack, near a two-way radio and an emergency satellite communication device.
Biologist Amber Peters from the Valhalla Wilderness Society is one of the scientists studying B.C.’s rare inland temperate rainforest.
As Peters picks her way through a patch of devil’s club toward a sun-splashed grove of giant cedars, she stoops and peers at something on the ground. “This is some scat that we just found and it looks like caribou poo,” she says as the rest of us catch up. “And that would be amazing.” She sets down her pack and pulls out a clear plastic bag, kneeling on the ground as she gingerly moves aside devil’s club stems lined with tiny spikes as sharp as needles. “It’s my most glamorous scat-collecting moment,” she jokes.
The scat, which resembles chocolate-covered almonds, is well-camouflaged among oat ferns, foam flowers, bunchberry and small clusters of brown needles shed by the cedars. It’s too old to show the grooves that indicate caribou scat; Peters will take it home and freeze it until genetic analysis can be done. “Why is this amazing?” she continues. “Because as far as we know, there are only six [animals] left in the Frisby-Boulder-Queest herd. So to find them in this park proposal area would be really important.”
Biologist Amber Peters collects scat in the Rainbow Valley that could be from endangered caribou.
Frisby Valley is lush with vegetation and has many old-growth trees.
Eight deep-snow caribou herds in southeast B.C. have winked out over the past 20 years, including the Frisby-Boulder-Queest herd, which biologists say is too small to survive. The remaining ten herds are on the cusp of extinction.
“A major part of this ecosystem is the deep-snow mountain caribou, which we have nowhere else on earth,” Peters says. “And these animals are showing us what’s happening to the ecosystem with their decline. That’s why we call them an indicator species, or a canary in a coal mine.”
When the group takes a lunch break, Valhalla cofounder and co-director Craig Pettitt lies back contentedly next to an enormous cedar tree, half-hidden by ferns. The vegetation is so dense it muffles sounds; the fluting song of a nearby Swainson’s thrush seems very far away. Pettitt, a former parks ranger, wildland firefighter and ski-touring company owner, has seen large swaths of ancient cedar trees clearcut in the inland temperate rainforest, including in critical habitat for deep-snow caribou herds. “The whole past philosophy has been to cut them all down because they aren’t worth anything for lumber,” he says, referring to old cedars that are often hollow.
Craig Peters, a cofounder and co-director of the Valhalla Wilderness Society, says the B.C. government doesn’t focus enough on protecting wildlife and species diversity.
The cedars, which are often used for fence posts and garden mulch, make excellent wildlife habitat when they are left standing or topple over from age or in a windstorm. Bears den in their root bowls, bats roost in crevices in thick, sloughing bark and birds nest in their foliage. When the cedars fall, they become bridges across streams and creeks for animals like bears and bobcats, as well as nurse logs that create microhabitats for insects and plants. Pettitt says the B.C. government’s primary focus on lumber values doesn’t take wildlife into account. “They don’t look at species diversity.”
Logging isn’t imminent, but clear protection plans aren’t either: government
Despite the BC NDP government’s promise to safeguard old-growth forests at the highest risk of biodiversity loss, Peters says the government’s response to Valhalla’s park proposal has been lukewarm at best. Last September, Peters, Pettitt and two other Valhalla representatives met with B.C. Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Randene Neill and other government representatives.
Peters says Neill told them to contact B.C. Forests Minister Ravi Parmar to discuss the park proposal, and that they tried, twice, but were first deferred then ignored. In an emailed response to questions, the Forests Ministry says it is aware of Valhalla’s “rich and unique” proposal for a provincial park and values the group’s work in identifying, mapping and researching the region. The ministry says it looks forward to engaging and partnering with First Nations and other governments and “working with all.” It notes the province has not recommended the three valleys for provincial park protection, saying the government looks forward to engaging and partnering with First Nations and other governments and “working with all” to explore conservation opportunities “as they arise.”
The Sinixt, Ktunaxa, Okanagan (Syilx) and Secwépemc all consider parts of the Rainbow, Frisby and Jordan their territories. “Because of these very complex overlapping First Nations territory claims, we leave that to government-to-government negotiations to resolve,” Peters says. “Our role is to bring the ecological significance of the area to the public.”
A creek fed by mountain ice fields cools the Rainbow Valley in the inland temperate rainforest.
Fallen trees give rise to new life in the old-growth Frisby Valley.
In an emailed statement, Ktunaxa Nation council notes Valhalla’s park proposal aligns with the recommendations of B.C.’s old-growth strategic review, saying “conserving rare, old-growth ecosystems is essential to ensure ʔa·kxam̓is q̓api qapsin (all living things) continue to thrive in ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa for generations to come.” Marilyn James, Autonomous Sinixt Smum iem matriarch, says protection “is mandatory to study and preserve what these ancient forests have yet to reveal.” James points to the value of the three valleys for old-growth forests, at-risk species and species new to science. “These are areas that need to be preserved, that are the very root and foundation of not only creating corridors, but critical habitat for very threatened, red-listed species,” she says in an interview.
Jarred-Michael Erickson, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Sinixt Confederacy, says he will need to have a conversation with his full council before deciding whether to support protection for the three valleys, adding the tribes “tend to support” initiatives to protect caribou and the inland temperate rainforest. The Sinixt Confederacy was created by the confederated tribes following a landmark court decision recognizing the tribes’ rights in Canada. (The Narwhal also reached out to Okanagan and Secwépemc nations, which were not able to respond before publication time.)
The Rainbow-Jordan wilderness park proposal is one of three park proposals Valhalla has developed to protect important areas of the inland rainforest that remain open to industrial logging and other development. “We’re focusing on the richest remnants that are still intact of this very rare ecosystem type,” Peters explains, “but also on creating landscape connectivity and including these valley bottom, very old and ancient inland temperate rainforests which have almost totally been left out of our parks system.”
The old-growth Rainbow Valley, sitting below mountain ice fields, is still intact. Logging is inching closer to the valley.
Although the B.C. government worked with Valhalla and First Nations to create a large conservancy about 50 kilometres southeast in 2023, that’s not enough to prevent ecosystem collapse, according to Peters and other biologists. The Rainbow, Frisby and Jordan valleys are especially valuable because they represent intact and connected ecosystems, from mountain top to valley bottom, making the area more resilient to the impacts of climate change, Peters says. “There are really steep mountainous areas that mean that you don’t get really hot, beating sun in the valleys. And so they’re cooler, and they maintain a deep snow pack later in the year, and they maintain moisture. They’re incredibly important.”
In an emailed response to questions, the B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship says voluntary old-growth logging deferrals in the valleys “are not permanent protections” and additional planning work is underway to develop long-term solutions. The Rainbow-Jordan park proposal and Valhalla’s other two park proposals are not currently recommended for protections but “may be considered as part of future recommendations,” the ministry says. The ministry also points to a collaborative habitat planning initiative for caribou that includes parts of the inland temperate rainforest. The initiative seeks to identify habitats that could benefit from increased conservation efforts, “ranging from improved management to protection,” the ministry says, noting specific areas have not yet been identified.
Rare and endangered lichens found in three unlogged sister valleys
Back in the Rainbow Valley, Spribille bounds from lichen to lichen and plant to plant, peering at the lichens through a magnifying lens with an LED light that hangs from his neck on a lanyard. He stops near a shiny, four-leafed plant and announces he’s just found a plant that hasn’t previously been documented in the Frisby and Rainbow valleys. The plant, a herb commonly known as boreal bedstraw or northern wild licorice, is a species of concern in B.C. Until that moment, Spribille says the southernmost known locality of the plant was the Seymour Valley, some 60 kilometres away.
He pulls out a hammer and chisel from his pack and crouches down beside a large boulder with a thick overcoat of vibrant green mosses. A bare patch of the rock looks like it’s covered in small black dots. With the magnifying glass, Spribille sees “a world of its own,” which he later describes as a “miniature landscape of tiny mosses and lichens that have their own peaks and valleys and fruiting features and a thousand different hues of green.” He chips off a small piece and pops it into one of the brown paper lunch bags he carries for samples, labelling it with the GPS coordinates.
Lichenologist Toby Spribille uses a hammer and chisel to chip off a piece of rock with lichen growing on it in the Rainbow Valley. He will take the sample back to his lab to study.
Then Spribille’s eye lands on a cluster of orange tufts on the rock. Magnified, they look like the tops of truffula trees from the Dr. Seuss book The Lorax. The tufts aren’t rare, and they aren’t lichens, Spribille explains. They’re a special group of algae called trentepohlia, or golden hair. Their genomes and the way they replicate DNA — “some of the very basic stuff about how they do life” — is unusual, Spribille says. “They’ve got very, very strange biology.” The golden hairs can photosynthesize — converting sunlight into energy — but they can also feed themselves by breaking down decaying organic matter, the way fungi and bacteria do. No one has ever been able to sequence or annotate their genomes. Spribille chips off a sample to bring back for one of his students to study.
On earlier research expeditions in the Frisby Valley, Spribille found rare greater green moon lichen — which depends on old-growth forests with pristine air quality — and cryptic paw lichen, a federally threatened species strongly associated with old-growth cedar and hemlock forests. Cryptic paw, which has fruiting bodies that face downward like the pads of a dog’s paw, is part of a group of species mostly found in rainforests in the southern hemisphere. In Canada, it grows only in B.C.
In the Frisby Valley, hiking near waterfalls that divide the upper and lower parts of the valley, Spribille and a colleague were stunned to see large colonies of Methuselah’s beard lichen, also known as old man’s beard. The pale green lichen, which drapes from tree branches and shrubs like Christmas tinsel, is threatened or lost from most of its historic range. Only small fragments had previously been found anywhere in the inland temperate rainforest.
Coral lichens are abundant in part of the Frisby Valley rainforest.
Lichens and mosses are plentiful in B.C.’s rare inland temperate rainforest.
After spending time in the Rainbow and Frisby valleys, Spribille sometimes reflects on the 15 years he lived in Europe, where many ancient forests have disappeared. Germany’s Black Forest has become a mythological place, even though many of its habitats are gone. “I went to places that they considered their trophy remaining old-growth forests and they’re so sad. They have been completely, in some cases, reduced to very small, postage stamp sizes, or with the superimposing pollution on them they’ve lost all their lichens of any kind of conservation significance.”
British Columbia still has a chance to protect old-growth rainforests and rare habitats and lichens with conservation significance, Spribille says. He believes there might be species new to science in the three valleys that biologists haven’t had a chance to see. What they’ve found so far on brief research trips continues to astound and excite him. “I feel it’s our responsibility to report back to society about what the public needs to know.”
Without pausing for breath, he says, “there’s some stuff on that rock that I’m gonna grab real quick,” and dashes off.