Over the past few years, Vancouver Island has grown to become a world renowned tourist destination, benefiting from its easy accessibility and proximal closeness to Vancouver and the USA, its mild climate, and most importantly, its vast, unspoiled natural features.  The island's wild, rugged coasts and inland mountains, wildlife diversity, and old growth forest stands attract nature lovers and outdoor enthusiasts who can partake in the vast array of recreational opportunities available to suit all interests.

    Besides the camping, hiking, skiing, resorting, and other activities too numerous to list, the high quality of game species and outdoor wilderness experiences offered has made the island an internationally reputable choice for hunting, trapping, and fishing.  Vancouver island supports strong and healthy populations of game species and fowl such as black bear, mule (black tailed deer), roosevelt elk, cougar, wolf, red fox, and many duck, goose, pheasant, and pigeon species contained within numerous designated hunting grounds.  Fishing is also widely supported with many island rivers and lakes stocked with various trout and freshwater fish species.

        As a result, I am proposing to find a new site for the development of a new hunting and fishing lodge, taking advantage of the island's increasing tourist population and strong wildlife, fish and natural landscape resources.  A spatial analysis of Vancouver Island was thus done to determine the potential lodge sites where factors concerning land use, wildlife habitats, protected areas, game ranges, fishing areas, and slopes had to be considered.  Found were two sites, one along the Gold River in the northern island region, hunting management unit *(MU) 1.9; and the San Juan River site located in the southern region, *(MU) 1.2 and 1.4.

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    * To find out more about MU game species and bag limits for each area, consult the  BC 2000-2001 Hunting and Trapping Regulations Synopsis