The provincial government plans to spend up to $5 million rerouting and improving a 12-kilometre stretch of logging road leading to the proposed Tim Horton Children’s Foundation (THCF) camp, said Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Marc Dalton.
“The road might be OK for the odd logging truck but it absolutely is not OK for cars or buses taking children to the camp. Tim Hortons is still investigating the site and completing their due diligence and our plan is to improve the access roads in tune with the Tim Hortons schedule,” said Dalton.
The camp will be built adjacent to Pine Lake, near the south shore of Alouette Lake, 36 kilometres north of Mission, where the former Boulder Bay corrections camp for youth once stood.
The stretch of road is north of the already improved roadway that brings visitors to the Zajac Ranch for Children. This upgrade would see the road widened, gravelled and maintained for year-round use. Included in that will be six kilometres of road construction for a bypass route around Sayers Lake.
“This is fantastic news for our foundation,” said Dave Newnham, vice president and executive director of THCF. “We’re planning on building yet another first-class, beautiful facility, this time in British Columbia. Although we are still in the approval stages, the road upgrade is a requirement for us to move forward in the process and represents a major positive step in the right direction.”
The road improvement was proposed as part of the Florence Lake Recreation Area project, brought forward by the District of Mission and First Nations in the west Stave Lake area.
