Horne Lake Caves Provincial Park | |
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Location | Alberni Land District, British Columbia, Canada |
Nearest city | Port Alberni, BC |
Coordinates | 49°20′42″N124°45′14″W / 49.34500°N 124.75389°W |
Area | 158 ha. (1.58 km2) |
Established | January 29, 1971 |
Governing body | BC Parks |
Website | bcparks |
Horne Lake Caves Provincial Park is a provincial park on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Its principal function is the protection, management, and recreational use of several caves collectively known as the Horne Lake Caves.
Although certainly known to the Qualicum First Nation, the first reference to caves at Horne Lake is in a geological report from 1912. [1] Two caves known as Main and Lower Main were thereafter known to loggers, and public visitation increased after they were publicised in 1939. In 1941 the larger Riverbend Cave was discovered and was a popular tourist site by 1945. In 1957 the Province placed a 29 ha. reserve around the Horne Lake caves which by then had been stripped of many of their formations.
Fears of vandalism in the recently revealed Euclataws Cave (discovered in 1963 by Jim & Delores Johnson of Nanaimo BC, but kept secret until about 1969) led local cavers to approach the provincial government for protection, and in January 1971 Horne Lake Caves became a provincial park. [2] Euclataws and Riverbend Cave were gated and guided tours commenced in Main, Lower Main and Riverbend caves. Vandalism and gate-breaching continued, however, and in 1984 a serious incident of vandalism in Riverbend Cave led to increased attention and the creation of a management plan in 1985, followed by improved visitor facilities and privately managed cave tours. Four additional caves, Cougar Cave, Eggshell Cave, Andre's Annex and Riverbend Trail Slot Cave, have recently been documented within the park. The park includes forest and part of the Qualicum River which provides opportunities for hiking, fishing and canoeing.
The 158 ha Horne Lake Caves Provincial Park is located approximately 60 km north of Nanaimo and 26 km west of Qualicum, and is 12 km from the Horne Lake exit off Highway 19. [3]
Adam Grant Horne for whom Horne Lake was named.
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Alberni was a provincial electoral district in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It originally appeared in the 1890 election and then, after being merged into Cowichan-Alberni for the 1894 election, was renamed Alberni riding in the election of 1898. The riding lasted by that name until 1933 and 1937, when the name Alberni-Nanaimo was used. In 1941 the Alberni riding name was restored. After a redistribution, the area became part of the riding of Alberni-Qualicum.
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Scott Kenneth Fraser is a Canadian politician who represented the Mid Island-Pacific Rim electoral district in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia from 2005 to 2020. A member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party, he was first elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the 2005 election, defeating one-term Liberal Party incumbent Gillian Trumper, and re-elected in the 2009, 2013 and 2017 elections. During the 41st Parliament (2017-2020) he served in the Executive Council as the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. In that role he led the government through adopting the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, with all party support, to implement the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
The Cody Caves are a network of limestone caves in the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. They are located 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Ainsworth Hot Springs on the west side of Kootenay Lake.
Adam Grant Horne was a Hudson's Bay Company employee at the Colony of Vancouver Island, a municipal politician and a businessman. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and died at Nanaimo, British Columbia. He married Elizabeth Bate whose brother, Mark Bate, also an HBC employee, was the first Mayor of Nanaimo.
An electoral redistribution was undertaken in 2008 in British Columbia in a process that began in late 2005 and was completed with the passage of the Electoral Districts Act, 2008 on April 10, 2008. The redistribution modified most electoral boundaries in the province and increased the number of MLAs from 79 to 85. The electoral boundaries created by the redistribution were first used in the 2009 provincial election.
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Horne Lake is located west of Qualicum Beach. Named after Adam Grant Horne, Hudson's Bay Company storekeeper at Nanaimo, who made the first recorded sighting of this lake in 1856.
Nanaimo River is a river on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, located near the city of Nanaimo on the island's east coast. Its headwaters are in the Vancouver Island Ranges of central Vancouver Island and its mouth, the Nanaimo River estuary, is at the south end of Nanaimo Harbour in the Strait of Georgia. The estuary is part of the Pacific Estuary Conservation Program.
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