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Burns Bog

Greater Vancouver Book

This story is from the Greater Vancouver Book by Chuck Davis. You can find more stories from the book or even purchase it here
by Shane McCune

Ask a clutch of coasties to name the Lower Mainland's largest park, and most will come up with Stanley Park, at 400 hectares (1,000 acres) the equal of New York's Central Park. The most green-spirited might point out, correctly, that Pacific Spirit Park, on the University Endowment Lands, is even bigger, at 750 hectares (1,850 acres). But the largest green belt in the area is Delta's Burns Bog, at 4,000 hectares the size of 10 Stanley Parks. Occupying a quarter of Delta, south of River Bend and west of Highway 91, it is the largest domed pear bog in North America and one of the largest in the world. It was named after a former owner, Pat Burns of Burns Meat packaging. The bog is known to biologists around the world, since only three percent of the planet is covered with peatlands. An ancient lake that filled with vegetation over the eons, the bog is choked with trees and bog plants such as sphagnum moss and Labrador tea. Rain is Burns Bog's only source of water, and its slow evaporation is a major regulator of the region's climate. The bog covers the largest undeveloped urban area in Canada and the largest wetland in the Fraser River delta. It is home to 24 species of mammals, including beaver, muskrat and Columbian black-tailed deer, 150 species of birds—and the largest garbage dump west of Toronto. The only protected part is the 60-hectare Delta Nature Reserve. The biggest chunk of Burns Bog, almost 2,300 hectares, is owned by Western Delta Lands Inc., which at various times since the 1970s has sought to develop portions of the bog with a $10 billion superport, a golf course, a 100-room hotel and office complex, and a racetrack. All have been rejected by municipal and/or provincial authorities. The Burns Bog Conservation Society has been fighting to have the entire area declared an ecological reserve and has been pressing the province to buy the land from WDL. Negotiations broke in the spring of 1996 after the company, owned by the McLaughlin family of Ontario (also owners of Grouse Mountain) turned down an offer of $27.5 million. Over the years the bog has been shaped and altered by both man and nature. Peat-mining in the 1940s gouged huge holes and drainage ditches in the heart of the bog. During World War II, it was controlled by the U.S. Army which planned to use the peat moss in refining magnesium for artillery shells. Farms have encroached on its periphery and the city of Vancouver dumps its garbage on a landfill in the southern portion. Highway 91, cutting through the eastern edge of the bog, intercepts runoff that once flowed into the bog, and flood control measures designed to protect farms along the Fraser River also prevent the periodic flooding that has watered the bog over the centuries. The bog has also been the site of serious fires, which can burn underground for months in the methane-rich peat. Major blazes occurred in 1977, 1990 (twice), 1994 and 1996. The 1996 fire covered Greater Vancouver in smoke and ash for two days, destroyed 170 hectares and cost more than $200,000 to extinguish.