Strathcona-Westmin Provincial Park, Provincial park in Strathcona Regional District, Canada
Strathcona-Westmin Provincial Park is a protected area in the Strathcona Regional District that covers more than 3,000 hectares of mountainous terrain. The landscape features steep slopes, dense temperate rainforest, deep lakes, and cascading waterfalls concentrated around the southern shores of Buttle Lake.
BC Parks carved Strathcona-Westmin out of Strathcona Provincial Park in 1987 so that mining could continue inside park boundaries. The Ministry of Mines and Petroleum Resources had approved the Myra Falls mine on 6 April 1970; it began as two small open pits and went underground, with several expansions since 1980. The park is to be reabsorbed into Strathcona Provincial Park once mining stops.
The park lies in the traditional territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples, whose name for Buttle Lake and the surrounding mountains predates the 1987 park boundary. The Myra Falls mine keeps a small company town at the lake's south end, where workers' housing and a mill sit beside the trailheads. Visitors pass the mine gate on the road to Myra Falls, a visible meeting of industrial and protected land.
Multiple trails traverse the park at varying difficulty levels and pass through different environments from forest to alpine zones. Visitors should prepare for changing weather conditions and bring warm, waterproof clothing, especially during wetter seasons.
Beneath the park's surface, the Myra Falls Operation runs an underground mine extracting multiple metals including copper and zinc. This coexistence of mining and protected landscape makes the park an unusual example of dual-use land management.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,772 contributors worldwide.