![]() ![]() “It’s amazing - the transition of this town,” he acknowledges. Those ideas carried him successfully through a 2018 mayoral campaign. Long after Davis’ early days of environmentalism, his ideas for a new economy - which include extending seasonal sports fishing to wider ecotourism and moving to small-scale selective logging - are catching on. The industry’s changing fortunes have led to a recent shift in attitudes within the town. Ideas for economic revitalization for the village include ecotourism, fishing, small-scale logging and support for local and visiting artists. Today the town’s population has dwindled to one-tenth its historic numbers, and only a handful of people are still employed in the forest industry.Ī building in Tahsis. “There were Italian and Sikh communities. “You used to get $18 an hour to start just to push a broom, back in the ’90s,” Davis tells The Narwhal. Some 2,500 people lived and worked in Tahsis in its heyday, drawn by the booming timber industry. Brian recalls the “town’s smell of lumber, the big heavy timbers in the hold of the ocean freighters, getting a sore back and having to quit, and, of course, sitting at dad’s table in the bunkhouse room in the evenings playing crib.” My late father, Art, and older brother Brian were employed here in the 1960s, as a millwright and labourer, respectively. The rains have called a temporary truce sun pours across the mountain tops and puts a much-needed shine on the tarnished little town that forms part of my family history. In the morning, I have a whole new outlook. “Go back, cross the bridge, turn left at the store, and follow the Tahsis River,” she says. Tonight’s home-cooked special is “redneck lasagna” which, I’m told, is a reference to the huge portions and certainly not the ownership or clientele.Ĭo-owner Sally Taylor is preparing to close early due to lack of business. ![]() I pull into Sally’s Grill at the far end of town, greeted by a “please dont (sic) touch the dog” sign on the front door. The main drag is South Maquinna Drive, but it does not directly connect with North Maquinna Drive, where my Airbnb is located - and the village has no cell service (although that changed a few days after my departure). I arrive for the first time in darkness in torrential winter rains, navigating dimly lit streets through a heavily fogged windshield. Tahsis is at the end of the line, and it can also feel like a town at the end of the world. Once you hit Gold River the pavement stops and it’s another 65 kilometres on a gravel logging road. From Campbell River, the nearest commercial hub, you head due west. The trip to Tahsis requires a 150-kilometre journey across the girth of Vancouver Island. Mayor Martin Davis stands above the Tahsis Inlet. “I was afraid I was going to get lynched.” “People thought I was trying to shut down all logging in the area,” Davis recalls. The remote village on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island had survived off logging and milling over the decades, until the last mill closed in 2001, around the time Davis arrived.ĭavis, an environmentalist, caver, tree planter and former underground radio-station operator, spent his spare time exploring the area’s caves and went on to play an important role in local conservation initiatives, including the creation of the 316-hectare Weymer Creek Provincial Park.Īlso in the Weymer watershed, on the east side of Tahsis Inlet just beyond the village, he played a key role in the establishment of the 29-hectare Wildlife Habitat Area in 2000.įor Davis, these decisions represented important wins for Tahsis’ rich biodiversity and landscapes, including six bat species, Roosevelt elk, old-growth trees, and caves and karst features containing the bones of mammals dating back 1,300 years.īut for long-time Tahsis residents, the new protected areas were simply part of the town’s growing economic problem. Residents of Tahsis treated Martin Davis with suspicion the moment he moved there two decades ago. Editor’s note: Travel to the village of Tahsis for this article was concluded before physical distancing and recommended travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic were put into effect. ![]()
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