Denman Conservancy Association
P.O. Box 60 Denman Island BC CANADA V0R 1T0
Inner Island Nature Reserve
Inner Island Nature Reserve was established in 1992 as a result of a cooperative effort of Denman Island residents, a logging company and the Islands Trust Fund (ITF). It was the first land purchase of the Denman Conservancy Association (DCA) whose volunteers raised the $70,000 purchase price through fundraising events on the island and in nearby Courtenay along with a matching grant from a private foundation.DCA purchased the property from Raven Forest Products of Campbell River and donated it to the Islands Trust to be held as a wildlife sanctuary. It was also the first land acquisition of the ITF. See detailed history
Two additional parcels of adjacent Crown land are implicated in the Inner Island Nature Reserve: Lot 1, comprising 25.6 hectares of wetland bisecting the Inner Island lands and the crown block, SW ¼ of Section 22 (64.75 hectares), immediately to the east. The ITF Board’s Management Plan for the Inner Island Nature Reserve on Denman Island includes these lands. DCA is the manager of the Reserve for Islands Trust Fund. The reserve is part of DCA’s Central Park Vision.
Nature Conservancy of Canada holds a conservation covenant on the Reserve.
Looking southeast from near the Pickles Road bridge
photo by John Millen
FOREST VALUES
The Reserve properties are within the Coastal Douglas-fir moist maritime (CDFmm) biogeoclimatic zoneThe Reserve area was logged around the turn of the century and the northern part again in 1984. Strips of mature trees, both Douglas-fir and western red cedar, were left along Pickles Road and in riparian areas.
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| Predominant forests | Douglas-fir with a shrub understory of salal and dull oregon grape |
| Moist sites | Western red cedar, grand fir and red alder |
| Very dry sites | Garry oak and arbutus are found on especially dry sites. |
| Under-story species | Oregon grape, salal, sword fern, a variety of mosses Vanilla leaf,red huckleberry, and woodland rose in suitable sites. Much woody debris, including large moss covered logs, on the forest floor. |
| Riperian understory | Sword fern, lady fern and skunk cabbage |
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| Riparian edge | hardhack and willows |
| Deeper water | Yellow pond lilies, Cinquefoil, water crowfoot, water parsley, pondweed |
| Shallows | extensive patches of sedges western red cedar snags killed by flooding |
Trumpeter Swans use the marsh in winter.
HISTORIC LAND USES
A sawmill was located just east of Pickles Road and south of the wetland sometime around 1907. There is evidence of clearing and wooden pilings out into the wetland.High cut stumps with springboard notches indicate selective logging occurred in the area at the time of the sawmill operation.
A raised roadbed, now overgrown, runs through the southeast portion of the Crown land in Section 22. This is the remaining grade of an extension of the logging railway that originated at Denman Point, traversed the DCA-owned Settlement Lands and reached Denman Road at the Southeast corner of DCA’s Central Park property, opposite the cemetery.
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