Forbidden Plateau - An Investigation into its Origin.....A Pilot
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- Hello and welcome my luverlies!!
This little video is a short pilot, brought to you from two wonderful presenters, to see if the story of Forbidden Plateau in beautiful Comox has any interest in being explore further.
We've basically decided to have a short intro into some of the history and mystery that surrounds this now disused ski hill.
Let us tell you how it almost was, and where things went wrong. We touch on the native legend, mention the money troubles, lack of snow leading to huge financial problems, and then the final straw of the roof ollapse/diesel leak that broke any interest in keeping the place alive.
Interesting points:
-First ski resort on Vancouver Island
-Meant to be a ski resort/lodge better than Mount Washington.
-The views, the skiing, the landscape are stunning
-due to a history plagued by misfortune, this success story was over before it began.
History:
-people in the 1920s would hike from the village of Bevan up the mountain to ski
-when an employee of the City of Courtenay recognized the beauty and potential of this place, he wrote to the paper and the idea was quickly snapped up by Ben Hughes, the Publisher of the Courtenay-Comox Argus newspaper. Hughes and a colleague christened the mountain "Forbidden Plateau", and Hughes seized the chance to fabricate the spooky legend.
According to the popular, though disproven, legend, when the K'ómoks faced raids from other coastal tribes, they took their women and children to the plateau for safekeeping. During a raid by the Cowichan, the women and children vanished without a trace. When a member of the tribe went looking for the women and children within the Forbidden Plateau, he found red lichen covering the snow and nearby rocks and assumed the lichen to be blood from the family members. Since then, the plateau became taboo for it was believed that it was inhabited by evil spirits who had consumed those they had sent.
This legend, however, has no basis in K'ómoks history, a fact which has been documented by sources such as Comox Valley environmentalist Ruth Masters and Pat Trask, curator at the Courtenay Museum. Clinton Wood and Ben Hughes appear to be the creators of the false legend, the first record of which can be found in an article by Hughes in The Province
newspaper in 1927. In a book published in 1967, Wood takes credit for the legend, stating that he believed a bit of mystery would help publicize the attraction of the plateau.
-multiple seasons of no snow led to financial hardship and large tax bills that the owners struggled to pay.
-1978-1979 was the peak for the Plateau, with nearly 100,000 skiiers visiting the resort, which gave the owners optimism and plans to expand and develop the resort further. But the following season was yet another year of zero snow, leading to the threat of sale to private developers,
particularly with the success of Mount Washington looming in the background
-Feb 25, 1999 the roof of the lodge collapsed. Just one week after resuming operations, yet another disaster befell the ailing ski resort. A valve on an 18,000-litre diesel tank broke and leaked what was later estimated to be over 5,000 litres of fuel, which contaminated a stream
and the well water of nearby cabins.
-In the early hours of Sunday, February 24, 2002-three years, almost to the day, since the roof collapse-the Forbidden Plateau day lodge burned to the ground. At the height of the fire, flames could be seen all the way from Courtenay.
-Forbidden Plateau couldn't seem to overcome its string of bad luck and eventually permanently closed in 2004 when the 20-year lease lapsed. Despite this, people saw the beauty in the location as Hughes did in the 1920s and worked to restore the property in the late 2010s, bringing this place of immense beauty back to its former glory.
If viewers are interested in hearing more and for a closer and more detailed expamination into the history of Forbidden Plateau then get in touch or "like, subscribe and comment" on the video.
We believe there is much more to the story and by diving further in we should be able to uncover a darker and more exciting truth.
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Music sourced from ARTLIST.IO
Deepest Dive by Tiko Tiko