A confrontation is brewing on the north island where remote Raft Cove Provincial Park is bracing for a flash mob of 2,000 hippies planning to stay there for up to a month.
It's called the "World Rainbow Gathering", an annual event that's been going on since 1972 at different spots around the world. This year's gathering was planned for the Kootenays but had to be relocated due to a jet fuel spill. Unfortunately they didn't bother telling anybody much less seek permission.
The Quatsino First Nation is pissed. Loggers working in that vicinity are pissed. Surfers who frequent the cove for its great waves are pissed.
The Rainbow Family did themselves no favours a few years ago when they staged a gathering at Bamfield, south of Tofino. The hippies left the place littered with garbage and feces - for the locals to clean up.
They've also picked a lousy time to show up in numbers at the small provincial park. Loggers say the forests are tinder dry and campfires pose an unacceptable risk.
As for the Quatsino nation, a Rainbow Family member from the Lower Mainland calling himself Red Crow has apologized for giving the band no prior warning.
"We want to offer to our brothers and sisters some tobacco and sacred pieces from other shamans across the world."
Update
The province, apparently wanting to head off a confrontation, has closed Raft Cove indefinitely (i.e. until those dirty hippies clear out). The parks ministry issued a release claiming, “The closure was prompted over specific concerns that an increase in the number of visitors unprepared for such a remote and rugged location would significantly increase the risk to public health and safety, the protection of the natural environment and the preservation of park values”
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