Spruce Lake Protected Area

Southern Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park is a British Columbia Provincial Park located on the inland lea of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains, between the Bridge River Country to the south and the Chilcotin Plateau to the north. Part of the larger subcomplex of the Pacific Ranges known as the Chilcotin Ranges, the park was finally protected in the 1990s after 60 years of debate and controversy.

This region is commonly (but incorrectly) known as the "South Chilcotin" and remains the object of a protracted quarrel between preservationist and resource development. A provincial park has been established, but its political status is uncertain and the area preserved is greatly reduced from the original proposals to protect it, which began in the 1930s during the heyday of the Bridge River goldfield towns just to the south.

The area's unique and distinct landscape and ecology, so different even from the rest of the Chilcotin Ranges or the rest of the Bridge River Country, is what made it stand out amid a region already wild and extremely beautiful and why it's a long-term candidate for protection. The neighbouring Dickson, Shulaps and Bendor Ranges are all unprotected and have been or are being heavily logged, except for special preserves in alpine areas of the Shulaps and in its neighbour to the east, the Camelsfoot Range.

Many on the environmentalist side hope that the creation of Tsy'los and Big Creek Provincial Park will help shore up the protection of the Southern Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park. Hunting guide Ted (Chilco) Choate of Gaspard Lake, on the Chilcotin Plateau just northeast of the Southern Chilcotins Park has joined in the call to combine all these three parks, plus the Churn Creek Protected Area to their northeast, plus some of the surrounding country and the deep, much higher heart of the Pacific Ranges into a National Park. Industry and government remain committed to shared use and sustainable planning.