Your idea of photographing salal-laden vehicles and their drivers seems like a good one to me, although the salal is often out of sight in a van, in a truck with a covered back, or under a tarp in a pick-up truck. If salal pickers thought that locals were watching the ferry line-up and documenting evidence, that would either make them think twice about coming here, or it would make them more careful to hide their salal.

As for signs, big signs at the ferry terminals would make sense, I think. You know that giant sign GROWLS has at the Gabriola terminal in Nanaimo? Like that. Something like “SALAL PICKING IS ILLEGAL ON GABRIOLA, unless you have the landowner’s permission. Illegal salal-picking is a problem on our island. If you see people picking salal on Gabriola, please call the Gabriola RCMP.” This would tell the salal pickers (if they bother to read it) that somebody’s on to them, and would alert community members and visitors to the problem.

There are logistical difficulties with putting signs in the forest – to start with, one would need the land-owners’ permission. And salal pickers are covering a wide area, and are often in the places I call the middle of nowhere. So hmmm. Also, these guys already know that what they’re doing is illegal. They’re just pretending to be ignorant, and hoping nobody will catch them.

An annoying problem, this.

Whether I am not visiting the ferry line-up as much as I used to… it really seems to me that the problem has largely died down from what I remember in the 90′s. I don’t think it was uncommon for there to be many families (read: ethnic groups) with multiple pickups ‘working’ the island and all going back on the ferry together with massively over-stuffed loads of salal in the backs of their trucks.

If June Harrison didn’t have knowledge on this matter I would be surprised. If anyone else can confirm the scale/duration/severity of this salal harvesting please share… even if it is just what you have witnessed.

My understanding of the situation is this: it’s not illegal to pick salal on your own land (hey, it’s your salal) or on other people’s land IF the land-owner has given you permission. However, it is illegal for somebody to harvest your salal without your permission. And it is illegal for people to harvest salal from parks. I think it’s also illegal to harvest salal from crown land.

Next time you’re driving through the Tunnel, take a look at the signs the federal government has put up. Some of the signs say:
No camping, No dumping, No tree cutting or salal picking.

So it’s not ok to pick salal in the federal government lands along North Road, though I see evidence of frequent salal-picking there. And it’s not legal to pick salal in the Elder Cedars Nature Reserve, though I’ve found salal harvesters there.

I have some concerns about salal harvesting, and I don’t view it as a forest cleaning service. I’ll blog more about that soon.

As for why islanders don’t say anything to salal harvesters in the ferry line, I’ve no idea. Don’t want to get involved? Don’t care? Think it’s a great thing? If one were to say something, what would one say? I’m guessing that the harvesters would just lie and say ‘hey, we were picking on private land with the owners’ permission. Yeah, it’s my pal’s place…”

Is this practice of taking Gabriola’s salal and selling it illegal? Does it depend on which land it is picked from?

While I hate seeing the trucks leave the island… should I be thinking, is this perhaps a good thing? Forest cleaning service? Or is this just another thing wrongly adjusting the balance of nature’s course on the island?

What I have always figured (rightly or wrongly) is that if it IS ILLEGAL to take from the island… then why don’t islanders say something to them in the ferry line?