By Julie Iverson, with Photography by Nick Didlick
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Danny Gerak looks over a small part of the dump
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The Upper Pitt River, located only about an hour from Vancouver, British Columbia, is a wild and beautiful river accessible only by boat or helicopter. Its clear deep pools contain wild steelhead, rainbow and bull trout, Dolly Varden, cutthroat, sockeye, coho and chinook salmon.
The water is so clean you can drink right out of the river. You can walk for miles along the riverbank, right to the border of Garibaldi Park. Black bears, deer, cougars, and other wildlife roam across the sandbars, leaving their tracks. It is a magical place, so calm and wild, it seems far removed from civilization. But it’s not.
On most days helicopter logging shatters the stillness. The roar of chainsaws breaks the soft whisper of the wind in the trees. The sharp thunder like crack of trees falling to the ground can be heard from the river. Huge clearcuts are visible on the hillsides surrounding the river.
But the Pitt River is hiding a dirty little secret.
Not far from a spawning channel built by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and just upstream from the Pitt River Lodge, a huge garbage dump sits barely covered by weeds and undergrowth.
Danny Gerak, owner of the lodge and unofficial caretaker of this magnificent river, says a 50-man logging camp dumped the garbage close to the river around eight years ago when they closed up their operation.
“Three years ago DFO was building the Alvin Paterson spawning channel and unearthed the garbage as they built channels to the Pitt River,” said Mr. Gerak. “ They couldn’t plow through the garbage to complete the channel on the route they wanted - so they built around it.”
He said the garbage wasn’t easily visible until relatively recently.
“Last year during the fall freshet the garbage was exposed to the river as it eroded the riverbank,” he said.
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Sockeye Fry swim in a pool near the dump on the banks of the Pitt River
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High water has slowly eroded the bank and now the dump is dangerously close to the river’s edge. Plastic garbage bags actually protrude from one section of the bank, about two feet from where a small pool sits, filled with hundreds of salmon fry.
A few feet from the river, in a tangle of trees and weeds, we saw a tiny frog sitting atop a partially buried truck tire, one of several poking out of the earth.
Glass bottles, Styrofoam cups, light bulbs, and mayonnaise jars are among the items discarded years ago.
Rusted metal drums that may have ruptured and leaked their unknown contents into the earth are barely hidden in the weeds and undergrowth.
But what is visible is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s far too much to
just pull out by hand. Tons of garbage is sitting there in the woods, away from plain view from the road, right at the edge of the river.
The next time the river floods its banks it could unearth some, if not all of the garbage, sending it downstream through the spawning gravel and into Pitt Lake.
It’s just a matter of time before this pristine river, where you can fill your water bottle and catch huge fish, becomes full of garbage. And the secret will be exposed for all to see.
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A Black Bear grazes on the grass on the bank of the Alvin Paterson spawning channel
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For more on the Upper Pitt River situation please see our comment section linked here 
Do you think the government should be taking action to protect one of North America's best fishing rivers? If you do, please let the following politicians know that you favour saving the Pitt River, by halting logging and by cleaning up the garbage dump. You might suggest that the area be turned into a provincial park.
David Anderson, Canada's Environment Minister - Anderson.D@parl.gc.ca
Gordon Campbell, Leader of the Liberal Party of British Columbia and by May 16 probably the next premier of British Columbia - Gordon.campbell.mla@leg.bc.ca
Ujjal Dosanjh, Premier of British Columbia - Ujjal.Dosanjh.Office@leg.bc.ca
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