E.C. Manning Provincial Park is a

provincial park Ischigualasto Provincial Park A provincial park (or territorial park) is a park administered by one of the provinces of a country, as opposed to a national park. They are similar to state parks in other countries. They are typically open to the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It is usually referred to as Manning Park, although that nomenclature is also used to refer to the resort and ski area at the park's core. The park covers 83,671 hectares (323 mi²) and was the second most visited provincial park in 2017-18 after

Cypress Provincial Park Cypress Provincial Park is a provincial park on the North Shore of Metro Vancouver Regional District, British Columbia. The park has two sections: a southern section which is accessible by road, and a northern section which is only accessible ...

. The park lies along

British Columbia Highway 3 British Columbia Highway 3, officially named the Crowsnest Highway, is an highway that traverses southern British Columbia, Canada. It runs from the Trans-Canada Highway ( Highway 1) at Hope to Crowsnest Pass at the Alberta border and for ...

, and occupies a large amount of land between

Hope Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: "expect with confidence" and "to cherish ...

and

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

along the Canada-United States border.

History

The earliest human use of the land was by the Coastal Native peoples of British Columbia, who, by travelling the route of the present-day Skyline Trail, accessed the Upper Similkameen Valley. The first European in the area was 1813 and was explored and mapped in 1827 by Archibald McDonald. Access to the area prior to the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

was extremely limited for the lack of any kind of developed roads or trails over the Cascade Mountains other than the Dewdney Trail, far to the north. The earliest form of the park was established in 1931 as the Three Brothers Mountain Reserve to prevent overgrazing, and it eventually became the Three Brothers Game Reserve in 1936. In 1941, the park was formed as Three Brothers Mountain Park, a Class A Provincial Park. In 1929, the construction of a road through the area was begun as a work project for the unemployed, but it did not get completed. When the Canadian government began to intern Japanese Canadians after the

Attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

, one camp was formed in the present-day

Sunshine Valley Sunshine Valley is an unincorporated community consisting of cabins, tiny homes, and RV parks on the Crowsnest Highway between the town of Hope (NW) and the entrance to Manning Park in the Cascade Mountains of British Columbia. The community has ...

, and the workers built the current Hope-Princeton highway, which was completed in 1949. The current route of the Hope-Princeton highway follows the route of the Allison Pass Trail, which was constructed in 1859-1860. During the completion of the highway, great emphasis was put on the relatively new concept of the motoring family. The Parks Branch worked to great lengths to ensure the aesthetic quality of the vistas along the highway were maintained. The park was named in memory of Ernest Callaway Manning, Chief Forester of British Columbia from 1936 to 1941 (not to be confused with

Ernest Charles Manning Ernest Charles Manning, (September 20, 1908 – February 19, 1996), a Canadian politician, was the eighth Premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 for the Social Credit Party of Alberta. He served longer than any other premier in Alberta's histor ...

, Premier of

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

from 1943 to 1968). Manning was killed in an airplane accident in 1941. During his time as Chief Forester, he was instrumental in developing the idea of setting land aside for future generations to enjoy. It was the teamwork of Manning and

Arthur Wellesley Gray Arthur Wellesley Gray (1876 – 7 May 1944) was a British Columbia cabinet minister and mayor. He is particularly noted for his work creating some of British Columbia's early provincial parks and Wells Gray Provincial Park is named for him. Hi ...

, Minister of Lands from 1933 to 1944, that established Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, Hamber Provincial Park,

Wells Gray Provincial Park Wells Gray Provincial Park is a large wilderness park located in east-central British Columbia, Canada. The park protects most of the southern, and highest, regions of the Cariboo Mountains and covers 5,250 square kilometres (524,990 hectares or ...

, and E.C. Manning Provincial Park.Neave, Roland (2015). ''Exploring Wells Gray Park'', 6th edition. Wells Gray Tours, Kamloops, BC. . Over the years, Manning Park has decreased in size, the most noticeable change being the park boundary in the east. Originally, the park included Similkameen Falls, but mine claims and private land ownership have since caused the boundaries to move more than 4 km west. While the park's ecology and ecosystems remain relatively intact, logging has occurred numerous times throughout the park's history, as parks historically focused more on the visual qualities for the public rather than ecological conservation.

Geography

The terrain in the park, which includes most of the

Hozameen Range The Hozameen Range (spelled Hozomeen Range in the United States) is a mountain range in southwestern British Columbia and northern Washington, straddling the division between the Coast and Interior regions of that province. It is a subrange of ...

sub-range of the Canadian Cascades, varies from wet coastal rain forests, to jagged snow-capped peaks, alpine meadows filled with wildflowers, to a chain of small lakes, and broad river beds along the valley floors. A network of trails crosses the park, some of them following routes used by the fur trade and native hunters and traders. The park is best known for its midsummer displays of subalpine flowers, but there are other flora such as at

Rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...

Flats, near the park's western entrance, which has a substantial colony of pinkish-red rhododendrons, a protected indigenous species that blooms in early- to mid-June.

Manning Park Resort

The park contains a resort with a capacity just below one thousand. The resort operator maintains the hotel buildings, restaurants, cabins, chalets, as well as the campgrounds, on contract from the British Columbia Government. The Resort first opened in the late 1950s with the construction of the

Hope-Princeton Highway The Crowsnest Highway is an east-west highway in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. It stretches across the southern portions of both provinces, from Hope, British Columbia to Medicine Hat, Alberta, providing the shortest highway connection b ...

. The original hotel building was a small motel near the current location of the Pinewoods Restaurant. Initially, the motorist's area was intended only for day use, including a restaurant and gas station, but quickly expanded. In its early years, there was internal debate about whether the core of the park should be more accessible to the general public, or more exclusive to limit access to only the well-educated and wealthy. The quickly rising popularity of the park lead to a focus on the former. In the 1960s, the province began ski operations in Manning Park, attempting multiple rope-tow setups. The first was located directly across the highway from the restaurant and accessed from Blackwall Road, and the second near the location of the present-day Blue Chairlift. In 1967 and 1970, the Blue and Orange

chairlifts An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel wire rope loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs. They ...

opened, respectively. The hill has operated December–March yearly since the early 1960s. Today the resort manages

Gibson Pass Ski Area Gibson Pass Ski Area, more commonly known as Manning Park Ski Area or simply Manning Park, is a small ski area located within E. C. Manning Provincial Park. The hill itself is not owned or operated by BC Parks, instead by the current park facility ...

. The resort was operated by the Provincial Government (along with other Ski Resorts in the Province) until 1986, when it and other then-provincially operated hills including Cypress Bowl and Mount Seymour transferred to private operation. A fifty year land use permit was granted for private operations. Manning Park Bus

In 2009, the resort and ski hill entered receivership and, after $4.2 million of debt, announced indefinite closure on April 1, 2013. However, on April 18, the operator of

RV Resort purchased the hill and resort for an undisclosed amount. The resort operations have now been fully restored. By the summer of 2013, the resort facilities were again fully operational, and the ski hill was fully opened for the 2015-2016 season. In April 2019, Manning Park Resort retired the Orange Chair, and completed construction of a new Doppelmayr quad chairlift named the Bear Chair, and new guest services building. In the Spring of 2016, the resort began construction on its first expansion in a decade (the last being Loon Lagoon, the resort's indoor pool), with an addition being constructed on the restaurant to cater to the expanding popularity of Manning Park Resort as a wedding venue. As of December 2017, five new large rental cabins were completed to the immediate northwest of the main lodge, and another eight were completed in 2019.

Recreation

The park has a wide range of walking and hiking trails which range anywhere from a 15-minute walk to a 5 or 6 day hike.

Lightning Lake Lightning Lake is a lake located in E. C. Manning Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada. The lake is freshwater and is located within the Similkameen-Okanagan forest district. The lake is unusual as it drains in two directions, into Flash Lake ...

is often used for non-motorized watersports, such as

canoe A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the term ...

ing,

kayak A kayak is a small, narrow watercraft which is typically propelled by means of a double-bladed paddle. The word kayak originates from the Greenlandic word ''qajaq'' (). The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each se ...

ing, and

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

. Rentals are available at the lake for canoes, rowboats, kayaks and stand-up paddle boards. The best time of the day to go boating in the summer is in the morning before the afternoon winds. The park is home to many campgrounds, including one of the first campgrounds in the provincial system to be both open year-round as well as offer full RV hookup. The park is the northern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail and is crossed by the Hope Pass and Dewdney Trail. It is also crossed by the Centennial Trail, a route constructed in 1966 for the centennial anniversary of Canada's confederation.

Location

The park stretches for from portal to portal. The western portal is east of

Hope, British Columbia Hope is a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end ...

and the eastern portal is west of

Princeton, British Columbia Princeton (originally Vermilion Forks) is a town in the Similkameen region of southern British Columbia, Canada."The rich history of Princeton or how Vermilion Forks made it on the map...", Princeton 2008 Visitors Guide, p. 4. It lies just east o ...

. The core area of the park is located east of Hope and 68 km west of Princeton and is less than from the US border.

Wildlife

Manning Park is home to a vast diversity of wildlife species, with over 200 bird species recorded during the Manning Park Bird Blitzes that have taken place since 1983, and a large variety of mammals, including black bears, Mule Deer,

Hoary Marmot The hoary marmot (''Marmota caligata'') is a species of marmot that inhabits the mountains of northwest North America. Hoary marmots live near the tree line on slopes with grasses and forbs to eat and rocky areas for cover. It is the largest Nor ...

Yellow-bellied Marmot The yellow-bellied marmot (''Marmota flaviventris''), also known as the rock chuck, is a large, stout-bodied ground squirrel in the marmot genus. It is one of fourteen species of marmots, and is native to mountainous regions of southwestern Canad ...

, and Columbian ground squirrels. There is also a large diversity of amphibians and reptiles, including the

Coastal Tailed Frog The tailed frogs are two species of frogs in the genus ''Ascaphus'', the only taxon in the family Ascaphidae . The "tail" in the name is actually an extension of the male cloaca. The tail is one of two distinctive anatomical features adapting the ...

Columbia Spotted Frog The Columbia spotted frog (''Rana luteiventris'') is a North American species of frog. It is green to brown in color with spots on the dorsal surface. The belly and upper lip are white in color. Individuals can be distinguished from other ''Ran ...

, Western Toad,

Pacific Treefrog The Pacific tree frog (''Pseudacris regilla''), also known as the Pacific chorus frog, has a range spanning the Pacific Northwest, from Northern California, Oregon, and Washington to British Columbia in Canada and extreme southern Alaska. They l ...

Long-toed Salamander The long-toed salamander (''Ambystoma macrodactylum'') is a mole salamander in the family Ambystomatidae. This species, typically long when mature, is characterized by its mottled black, brown, and yellow pigmentation, and its long outer fourth ...

, all three species of Gartersnake, and

Alligator Lizard An alligator lizard is any one of various species of lizards in the Family (biology), family Anguidae that have some shared characteristics. The term may specifically refer to: Species of the genus ''Elgaria'': * Northern alligator lizard (''Elg ...

.Matsuda, B. 1994.The Reptiles and Amphibians of Manning Provincial Park, BC. Discovery 23(2):63–68. Although undocumented, the

Rubber Boa The rubber boa (''Charina bottae'') is a species of snake in the family Boidae and is native to North America. It is sometimes known as the coastal rubber boa or the northern rubber boa and is not to be confused with the southern rubber boa (''C ...

Red-legged Frog Red-legged frog is a common name for several species of frog: * California red-legged frog, ''Rana draytonii'', a frog endemic to California, United States * La Selle red-legged frog, ''Eleutherodactylus furcyensis'', a frog found in the Dominican ...

, and

Cascades Frog The Cascades frog (''Rana cascadae'') is a species of frog in the family Ranidae found in the Pacific Northwest, mainly in the Cascade Range and Olympic Mountains. Description Appearance The Cascades frog has a green to brown color on its b ...

may also occur here. Some of the less common species the park aims to protect are the

mountain beaver The mountain beaver (''Aplodontia rufa'')Other names include mountain boomer, ground bear, giant mole, gehalis, lesser sasquatch, sewellel, suwellel, showhurll, showtl, and showte, as well as a number of Chinookan and other Native American terms ...

and the

wolverine The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for "gluttony, glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is ...

Major rivers

Several major rivers originate in passes and meadows within the park. The Skagit River, a major stream that runs into

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

in the state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, originates at the west side of Allison Pass and flows northwest alongside

Highway 3 The following highways are numbered 3, H-3, PRI-3, AH3, E03 and R3. For roads numbered A3, see A3 roads. For roads numbered M3, see M3. For roads numbered N3, see N3. For roads numbered 3A, see 3A. International * Asian Highway 3 * Europea ...

until it reaches its confluence with the

Sumallo River The Sumallo River is located in southern British Columbia, in the Cascade Mountains to the east of Hope. It begins on the east slopes of Mount Payne, south of the village of Sunshine Valley. It flows north until it reaches Sunshine Valley wher ...

at Sumallo Grove, where it turns southwest and exits the park into

Skagit Valley Provincial Park Skagit Valley Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, centred on the Skagit River and its tributaries. The park is 27,964 Hectares. The park borders E. C. Manning Provincial Park in Canada and Ross Lake National Recreati ...

. Just under half of the Sumallo River's course is within the park; it enters the park at West Gate, which is near the small town of

. It too follows Highway 3 within the park, following it southeast to its confluence with the Skagit. The lower reaches of the small Skaist River, often mistakenly called ''Skaist Creek'', are within the park. The Skaist flows into the Skagit directly across the valley from Silverdaisy Mountain. The

Similkameen River The Similkameen River runs through southern British Columbia, Canada, eventually discharging into the Okanagan River near Oroville, Washington, in the United States. Through the Okanagan River, it drains to the Columbia River. The river is said ...

, the largest tributary of the Okanagan River, starts on the west slopes of Nicomen Ridge in the northern regions of the park and flows southeast then northeast through the park, following Highway 3 closely until exiting the park at East Gate.

References

External links

* *
Manning Park Resort Website

Manning Park - Lighting Lake
* * * * http://hopemountain.org/programs/manning-park-bird-blitz/ {{Authority control Lower Mainland Provincial parks of British Columbia Similkameen Country Canadian Cascades Ski areas and resorts in British Columbia 1941 establishments in British Columbia Protected areas established in 1941