The Rainbow–Jordan Watershed: Last Cathedral of the Big River

The Columbia River — The Big River — is the namesake of British Columbia.

With a drainage basin approximately the size of France,1 the river earns its title as big. And so too, for most of its history, did the forests beside it earn this title too. Big. Towering, ancient cathedrals of green giants, Hemlock and Cedar, draped in regalia of moss coats and shaggy Lichen. Their temples filled with Bear, Caribou, and towards the north, the Sinixt People,2 who called these groves home. Today, these ancient cathedrals are all but gone. Logged, flooded, burned, bulldozed, we have all but annihilated what these ancient places — and their inhabitants — once were. In their place we find cut blocks, towns, dams, power lines, mines, roads, rails, and all the fixings of modern life in the Columbia Basin. But travel up the Columbia, to the rugged mountains of the ‘Big Bend’ and, after pulling off the road and accessing the western side of the Revelstoke Reservoir, a last bastion of these once ancient forests can be found.3 This is the Rainbow–Jordan Watershed.

But why was this watershed, unlike all the others around it, spared from destruction? Well, for one, it is a terminus. The creeks and rivers of these valleys lead nowhere except high alpine meadows and glacial peaks; they are not the connecting arteries that Eagle and Rogers Pass are.4 Another factor is the inconvenience of logging it. Dragging equipment, men, and roads into a region so rugged and remote makes little economic sense — and when the reservoir was constructed,5 the very water that drowned so many other trees formed a protective barrier around the northern end of the watershed. The region was saved by its inconvenience to develop.6 But all of this logistical talk detracts from the reason this site is so significant. It truly is a gateway to another world. Stepping into these valleys is as close as you can get to stepping into another world entirely. If you enter from the south, you need to bushwhack, off the main logging roads into the more rugged and unruly terrain of the Upper Jordan. The air thickens with mist and moisture, the trees widen and grow farther apart. The underbrush is covered in thick plant cover, and a sense of liveliness and being watched by things just out of reach overtakes you. This is the Upper Jordan Valley. Home to Grizzlies, Moose, and other megafauna from a British Columbia before our time, the interior of the valley is a haven for at-risk, endangered, and even unknown species.7 Down-valley it’s inland temperate rainforest proper: ancient Western Redcedar and Western Hemlock in tight, wet stands.8 Up onto the upper benches, the canopy flips to Engelmann Spruce and Subalpine Fir — a second, colder old-growth band.9 Bark and branches carry heavy loads of old-growth lichens (think Usnea longissima, the long pale “beard”) that underpin winter forage and overall biodiversity.10 This stacked forest — cedar–hemlock below, spruce–fir above — is exactly why the Jordan reads older the farther you go. It should be noted that this watershed is one of the last true frontiers of this once wild and unruly land — it has yet to be penetrated by roads, forestry, or any other human activity, save the few surveying expeditions into the area by scientists, environmentalists, and those curious.11 If, instead, you choose to access the valley via the north, you will travel by water — the reservoir has both blocked and shielded the valley from humans. Crossing the lake, you approach the steep, misty landing that marks the beginning of a formally unnamed valley (though nicknamed “Rainbow” by a few biologists). It is here where the remoteness and power of this place truly speaks. Rainbow is the soaked side of the story. Its unroaded inland rainforest core holds massive cedar–hemlock groves and, on the valley floor, seep-fed sedge–sphagnum mosaics — a wetland type not previously documented in B.C.’s interior classification.12 Shallow bowls turn alive with amphibians in season; higher up, Rainbow still grades into spruce–fir old growth, so you get the same two-band stack in one compact basin. That mix — ancient rainforest and new-to-science wetland community — is why this valley keeps showing up in biologists’ notebooks. But for all the environmental protection this valley offers to its fortunate inhabitants, its own future is threatened. Advances in forestry technology and the ever-evolving political-social dynamics around preserving these last great strongholds of forest put this environment — whose protection should be out of the question — into question.

Local groups are pushing to lock it in as a provincial park–scale protected area. Valhalla Wilderness Society’s proposal scopes about 10,493 ha across three valleys (Rainbow, Jordan, and a third unnamed valley), describing unroaded, intact inland rainforest, plus wetlands “including a previously undocumented type.”13 Wildsight frames Rainbow–Jordan as one of only four Inland Temperate Rainforest hotspots left,14 and BC Nature has publicly supported Class-A park status (earlier scoping at 8,408 ha).15 In short: science-backed, community-backed, ready for the Province to act. But why should we push for this area to be protected? It’s difficult to access, scarcely known to most of British Columbia, and some may argue, only a preserve for nature — not for humans. But think about it: we should leave something Big for the Big River. Rainbow– Jordan is not scenery; it’s a living system that still remembers what Cedar, Hemlock, Lichen, water, and time can do when left alone. We don’t need to improve it. We just need to draw a clean line on a map, keep the saws and roads out, and let the forest keep its work. There isn’t a second one to swap in if this goes. For a province named after the Columbia, protecting this last bastion isn’t a luxury — it’s baseline respect for the river, the land, and the people who have always known it.