Tahsis Mayor Martin Davis and a group of community volunteers fill in the pothole-ridden Head Bay Forest Service Road, that is their only land route in and out of the community on the west coast of Vancouver Island.Jack Taylor/Supplied
Tahsis Mayor Martin Davis led a vigilante party from the village one day last February. Armed with shovels, the group took on the culprit responsible for damaging vehicles in their community: the pothole-ridden road that is their only land route in and out of the municipality on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The unsanctioned repair crew scraped up gravel from the side of Head Bay Forest Service Road to fill potholes and smooth out the ripples on its surface that routinely costs locals in auto repairs.
But village residents may not have to take on that kind of effort themselves again. After months of inquiries and a fight to access documents under British Columbia’s Freedom of Information law, the tiny community has managed to embarrass the province into helping them out to repair the route.
Head Bay Road runs 62 kilometres from Tahsis to Gold River, where it connects to paved routes and the rest of Vancouver Island. The road winds through mountainous terrain, and in the winter, local drivers generally accept that they need a four-wheel drive with studded snow tires to get in and out of town. It’s also recommended that they bring along a snow shovel, VHF radio and basic survival equipment. If there are trees down, a chainsaw can also come in handy. Even in good weather, the route can feel like driving over a washboard.
“We all burn through vehicles pretty fast here,” Mr. Davis said in an interview.
There is a Facebook page devoted to driving conditions on the road to Tahsis, where residents share regular updates. In a recent post, one driver warned of icy conditions that day: “What was drivable this morning was slicker than pig snot the entire way home.”
When the road is especially rough, the mayor hears about it: “Everybody relies on the road, it’s a primary concern,” Mr. Davis said. If the road is impassable, the only other way in or out of Tahsis is by boat, floatplane or helicopter.
Head Bay Road runs 62 kilometres from Tahsis to Gold River, where it connects to paved routes and the rest of Vancouver Island.Jack Taylor/Supplied
Head Bay Road was built for the logging industry, and the village of Tahsis sprouted up as a forestry community. The last mill shut down more than 20 years ago, and while some folks never moved away, today the population of 400 is more diverse. There are people who, like Mr. Davis, were drawn to the community for the outdoor pursuits offered in rugged Nootka Sound.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an influx of new residents taking advantage of the low housing costs and high-speed internet, which allows them to work far from corporate headquarters. And there are those who like the isolation.
“It’s a small, quiet, remote place where it rains a lot,” the mayor said.
The road had morphed into a public transportation link, so the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure took over responsibility from the Ministry of Forests. The idea was that the former ministry would provide surface maintenance “to a higher standard than normally required on a gravel logging road,” spokesperson Dave Crebo said in a statement. “We understand how vital this road is to the local community.”
Big city mayors have a certain amount of clout with the B.C. government – particularly when they work together. But for some of the province’s smallest communities, access is sometimes limited to the annual convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, where mayors vie for brief meetings with a cabinet minister. Even at the UBCM, Mr. Davis was turned down two years in a row for an audience with Rob Fleming, the province’s Transportation Minister.
The mayor had dogged staff in the ministry for years, asking for the inspection reports that might explain what residents perceived as a deteriorating state of the road. When the answers were not coming, the local government filed a Freedom of Information application to the provincial government.
“Residents, businesses, road users and visitors express ongoing deep dissatisfaction with the condition of the road and, in addition, suffer motor vehicle accidents and wear and tear damage to their vehicles,” the application in October, 2021 said. “This request is made so that all road users have complete information about the Ministry’s management of the contract as it relates to the maintenance.”
The response took months, and the province, after initially demanding $2,000 to turn over documents, reduced the charge to the Tahsis government to $1,000. The documents indicate the residents were not imagining things; road maintenance had in fact been reduced. B.C. used to spend close to $1-million annually, but over the past three years, the average is less than $500,000 a year.
That led a frustrated mayor to post on the Facebook page devoted to Tahsis road conditions that he was going to try to fix the road himself. More than a dozen residents joined him. People took pictures, and shared them on social media.
The optics were so bad that the town finally got support from the province: The ministry finished work in the fall on a $3-million project to rehabilitate the road. In addition, it paved the bridge approaches, and its private contractor replaced 11 culverts and completed work on the ditches to help move water off the road.
“We’re not a big community, but we need a functional road,” Mr. Davis said. He is unapologetic for the tactic, because nothing else was working.
“It’s the squeaky wheel, I guess.”