The Forbidden Plateau is a small, hilly

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ha ...

in the east of the

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...

Ranges In the Hebrew Bible and in the Old Testament, the word ranges has two very different meanings. Leviticus In Leviticus 11:35, ranges probably means a cooking furnace for two or more pots, as the Hebrew word here is in the dual number; or perhaps ...

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, ...

, northwest of

Comox Lake Comox Lake is a glacier fed freshwater lake located in mid-Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It is located northwest of the smaller Beaufort Lake in the Comox Valley near Cumberland, British Columbia, and about 10km southwest of Courte ...

roughly between Mount Albert Edward to the southwest and

Mount Washington Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, ...

to the northeast.

Geography

The plateau features gently sloping sub-alpine terrain broken up by small, rugged hills and pitted with small lakes. Much of it is contained within

Strathcona Provincial Park Strathcona Provincial Park is the oldest provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, and the largest on Vancouver Island. Founded in 1911, the park was named for Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, a wealthy philanthropi ...

, and a network of trails facilitate

hiking Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Histor ...

cross country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

, and access to Mount Albert Edward. A sub-alpine meadow on Mount Becher in the southwest corner of the plateau is one of only a few sites in Canada of the Olympic onion ('' Allium crenulatum'').Schaan, Gary. 2004. "Managing Towards the Gold Standard—Ecological Values of Second Growth Small Woodlands on Vancouver Island." In T.W. Droscher and D.A. Fraser (eds). Proceedings of the 2003 Georgia Basin/Puget Sound Research Conference. CD-ROM or Online. Available: ebruary 2004/ref>

Geology

The plateau was the

epicentre The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

of the 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake that registered 7.3 on the

Richter magnitude scale The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...

, the strongest ever recorded on land in Canada.

The legend

According to the popular, though disproven, legend, when the

K'ómoks The K’ómoks or K'omoks, usually known in English as the Comox people, are an indigenous group of Coast Salishan-speaking people in Comox, British Columbia and in Toba Inlet and the Malaspina Peninsula areas of the British Columbia mainland ac ...

faced raids from other coastal tribes, they took their women and children to the plateau for safekeeping. During a raid by the Cowichan, the women and children vanished without a trace. When a member of the tribe went looking for the women and children within the Forbidden Plateau, he found red lichen covering the snow and nearby rocks and assumed the lichen to be blood from the family members. Since then, the plateau became taboo for it was believed that it was inhabited by evil spirits who had consumed those they had sent. This legend, however, has no basis in K'ómoks history, a fact which has been documented by sources such as Comox Valley environmentalist

Ruth Masters Ruth (or its variants) may refer to: Places France * Château de Ruthie, castle in the commune of Aussurucq in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France Switzerland * Ruth, a hamlet in Cologny United States * Ruth, Alabama * Ruth, Ark ...

and Pat Trask, curator at the Courtenay Museum. Clinton Wood and Ben Hughes appear to be the creators of the false legend, the first record of which can be found in an article by Hughes in ''

The Province ''The Province'' is a daily newspaper published in tabloid format in British Columbia by Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, alongside the ''Vancouver Sun'' broadsheet newspaper. Together, they are British Columbia's only ...

'' newspaper in 1927. In a book published in 1967, Wood takes credit for the legend, stating that he believed a bit of mystery would help publicize the attraction of the plateau.

Notes and references

External links

{{Plateaus and Highlands of British Columbia Alberni Valley Canadian legends Plateaus of British Columbia Reportedly haunted locations in British Columbia Strathcona Provincial Park Vancouver Island Ranges

Geography

Geology

The legend

See also

Notes and references

Further reading

External links