Credit Ric Careless
Map provides approximate location.
Lonesome Lake
Stuie, BC
BC Parks Foundation – 2020
62 hectares
Property Description
The MapleCross Fund helped the BC Parks Foundation protect one of BC’s most historic and famed conservation properties. Ralph Edwards and family kept the magnificent Trumpeter swan- North America’s largest waterfowl- from extinction at their wilderness homestead on the sapphire waters of Lonesome Lake.
Amidst ancient Douglas fir and cedar forests in the remote and rugged Coast Mountain heartland of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, Edwards and family fed the swans through hard winters. Their breeding numbers thrived, thereby starting the recovery of this magnificent species. The Edwards’ efforts at Lonesome Lake are recognized as a great Canadian conservation success story and today these brilliant white birds have repopulated their range throughout North America.
Spectacular Lonesome Lake is the wildest of the wild. It is a premier spawning ground for world class salmon and steelhead trout. Each year, grizzlies travel valley-bottom trails threading past high peaks to feast on these fish.
Ralph Edwards old ranch – a 62-hectare private property inholding in BC’s largest provincial park – came up for sale and the BC Parks Foundation knew that if the heritage of the swans, the history of this visionary environmental frontiersman, and the wild heart of Tweedsmuir were to be preserved, it needed to purchase and protect the land.
MapleCross helped protect the homestead at Lonesome Lake, making conservation history… just like the Edwards did… ensuring that this world-class wilderness treasure will remain in public park ownership for all the generations of swans, grizzlies and British Columbians to come.
Content and property pictures courtesy of BC Parks Foundation.
