Owl Hill Ecological Reserve

QLNA’s Mission Statement is: Advocating for the natural environment, scenic beauty, historic and rural character of the Quamichan Lake neighbourhood and for the collective stewardship of the Quamichan Lake watershed.

The headwaters of Quamichan Lake is comprised of one of three creeks that originates in a 75-acre forest bounded by Herd Road to the North, Calais Road to the South, Lakes Road to the East, and Richard’s Creek to the West.

 The area was unofficially called Owl Hill Park by locals. For the last two years QLNA has been advocating to MNC to formally designate the area as a Park. The land belongs to North Cowichan and was zoned as A2, so it was a simple rezoning task with no cost to tax payers. Late in 2025 Council unanimously voted to designate the area an Ecological Reserve.

The area is an incredible asset to the Valley. It was logged only once around 1940. Those trees not harvested at that time are now considered Old Growth with numerous Fir and Cedar trees up to 1.5 meters in diameter. The logging was done before replanting regulations, so the area has self-regenerated. About ninety-five percent of trees are endangered Coastal Douglas Fir, complemented with a smattering of Grand Fir, Western Hemlock, Red Cedars, Broad Leaf Maples, and about two dozen Arbutus. What completes and augments the area’s Biodiversity are three large wetlands each drained by a creek.

There are four main entrances to the Reserve, namely at the ends of Buckingham and Hampton, Calais at Drumcullen, and Calais at the end of Wicks. A fifth entrance is via Mumm’s Park on Buckingham Road. There are about twenty kilometres of trails which are accessible on the All Trails app. 

Here is a link to the presentation that was made about Owl Hill Ecological Reserve at the 2026 QLNA AGM

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