page_title: Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park
section_title: Ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park / Ecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Old growth Red Cedar (Thuja Plicata) in the upper West Walbran valley near Anderson Lake.
context_page_description: Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park, originally Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park, is a remote wilderness park located inside traditional Ditidaht First Nation ancestral territory. The park covers a land area of 16,450 ha immediately adjacent to Pacific Rim National Park Reserve's West Coast Trail on the southwestern, coastal terrain of Vancouver Island. The provincial park comprises the entire drainage of Carmanah Creek, and a good portion of the lower Walbran River drainage, both of which independently empty into the Pacific Ocean. The park is named after the Anglicized diitiid?aatx word kwaabaaduw7aa7tx, or Carmanah, meaning "thus far upstream" and John Thomas Walbran, a colonial explorer and ship's captain. Access to the park is by gravel logging road from Port Alberni, Lake Cowichan, or Port Renfrew.
  The Carmanah Walbran protects extensive tracts of luxuriant Pacific temperate rainforest, and is famous for its ancient old growth, which includes giant western redcedar, coast Douglas-fir, western hemlock, and towering groves of Sitka spruce that grow along the productive riverside flats.
context_section_description: This area lies within the coastal western hemlock (CWH) biogeoclimatic zone. Biogeoclimatic zones can be further divided into subzones, of which this park contains three. Immediately adjacent to the ocean lies the CWH Southern Very Wet Hypermaritime subzone, which is intimately shaped by the forces of the sea. This subzone is often referred to as the "spruce fringe forest" and is characterized by the dominance of sitka spruce, which is specially adapted to withstand the magnesium salts of sea spray. Other characteristic species include leatherleaf polypody fern and evergreen huckleberry.
  Just inland is the CWH Submontane Very Wet Maritime subzone, which comprises the majority of the area of Carmanah Walbran park. The dominant coniferous trees here are western hemlock, coast Douglas-fir, western redcedar, and Sitka spruce. The year-round mild and humid climate produces ideal conditions for the development of extensive epiphyte communities in the forest canopy.
  The forest contains twice the biomass of tropical rainforests. Marbled murrelet nests have been found in the area.
caption: Old growth western red cedar in West Walbran valley
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