Month: October 2020

sandymcruer

The Hole-in-the-Wall Conundrum

There is a debate in town about whether this place should be a tourist attraction. Some say it already is. Others say “keep it as is”. And other issues swirl around it. The actual location of the hole is on land owned by the City of Port Alberni, but getting to it is on land controlled by Mosaic Forest Management. They are not known for welcoming people on their property without due notice. And there is more stuff too.
Here are a few shots of it to illustrate what else is there.

Roger Creek makes a U-turn at the Hole-in-the-Wall. Here it is cutting through cliffs of shale, a very soft rock. So the early engineers who built the first waterworks for Alberni took a short cut through the rock wall
And the water falls into a little swimming hole where only the most adventurous dares to use the rope.
Upstream from the Hole, where Stokes Creek joins Roger Creek is another dam from the same ptoject. The end of an old pipe is visible on the right.
The remains of the first water supply to serve Alberni before it merged with Port Alberni originally. These hoops originally bound wooden staves. However, a century later, just the the hoops are left.
A rough trail leads downstream from the Hole-in-the-Wall to this dam at the top of a waterfall…
Seekers Media Video crew in the field. Hired by the city and its partners to promoting things to do in the valley, whether they are on private land or not. there have been other film crews here as well.
These Inukshuks were all built by visitors playing with the flat rocks that litter the creek banks. Roger Creek has some of the best skipping stones I’ve ever seen.