Deplorable encampments proliferate in Chilliwack River Valley without scrutiny, enforcement

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Image: Mike Vanden Bosch / PML / This encampment is virtually invisible from Chilliwack Lake Road, but it’s about 400 yards west of Thurston Meadows and just south of Chilliwack Lake Road up on a hill sight unseen.

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In an area where there is no running water or portable toilets, it’s pretty clear where sewage and other excrement wind up, but Ross Aikenhead, a volunteer with the Chilliwack/Vedder River Cleanup Society, is furious that homeless encampments like these are located below a fish hatchery.

The encampment he’s referring to borders the Chilliwack River on the left side of Chilliwack Lake Road as you head east towards Chilliwack Lake, located about 5.8 kilometres downstream from the hatchery.

Image: Supplied by Ross Aikenhead / This homeless encampment appears to have junk falling into the river. It’s about 5.8 kilometres west of the fish hatchery on Chilliwack Lake Road.

“This is absolutely unacceptable that this is allowed to happen and does so continually,” Aikenhead said. “What makes it worse is that there is absolutely no government support for cleaning up after camps like this and it’s left to volunteers to deal with.”

Aikenhead has compiled a list of all the encampments east of the Tamihi Rapids bridge. He says there are nine camps in a 5.8-kilometre stretch of Chilliwack Lake Road.

“Some have multiple RVs and I don’t know how many people,” Aikenhead said. “All the sewage and garbage from these camps is going straight into the environment and spawning river. I’ve been dealing with camps like this long enough to know that this is a huge pile of stolen property including carts from IKEA. Something needs to change.”

Wayne Furness, a former conservation officer and fisheries officer, is an agreement holder who is tasked with managing all recreation sites in the Chilliwack River Valley for the Ministry of Forests, including Thurston Meadows. He says he has lobbied to get the B.C. government to respond to these encampments that constitute squatting on Crown land, but to no avail.

The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Operations and Rural Development is responsible for the management of lands owned by His Majesty the King in right of the Province of British Columbia, Furness points out. The enforcement arm of the Ministry of Forests includes both natural resource officers and conservation officers. More specifically, Section 8.2 of the Land Use Policy restricts camping on Crown land to 14 consecutive days, Furness said, but it isn’t enforced at all.

He has also been forced to install security cameras at Thurston Meadows and Tamihi Creek Recreation Site due to the amount of theft that occurs at both campsites.

“The cameras were installed at Thurston and Tamihi in the spring of 2022 to try and catch unwanted visitors and the theft of equipment from campers,” Furness wrote in an email. “We are still having theft problems as most thieves do not enter from our main gate.”

Furness sees firsthand what happens throughout the Chilliwack River Valley due to his role of managing several recreation sites. He says many of the squatters are not homeless but choose to live in government land for free.

“Some have jobs they go to each day, others may be retired, and yes, some are homeless and survive only by selling goods to re-sell,” he said. “Stolen items are collected by many. Anything that can’t be sold collects at the sites as you saw today. Eventually they relocate leaving a mountain of garbage to be cleaned up by volunteers. If this unauthorized use of Crown land was dealt with immediately (after 14 days), the problem would not exist. Enforcement is non-existent.”

That could be changing as soon as this week. Late Wednesday morning, Fraser Valley Today learned that a manager from the Ministry has authorized, and will cover, costs for Furness to use his personal excavator and dump trailer to initiate a cleanup of the area, according to an email from Aikenhead.

“I’m picking up some dump passes later today and we will start by getting the garbage out of the river and off the bank,” Aikenhead said.

As for the ongoing environmental disaster that continually persists, Furness says it’s time for the government to act and stop kicking the can down the road for another agency to deal with it.

“The public in general and for sure the recreational users of the Chilliwack River Valley are frustrated with the lack of action taken by government officials to look after the environment,” Furness said. “The FVRD has a sign that welcomes visitors to the beautiful Chilliwack [River] Valley and it says, ‘Leave only footprints.’ Wouldn’t that be nice? With enforcement it is possible. Do our conservation officers care about the beautiful Chilliwack River?”