In March 2025 ECA was approached as applicant for a Grant in Aid to research the history and diversion of Smales/Whittaker Creek, the site of the catastrophic 2020 Lower Road washout. The attached report was produced by ECA members and Streamkeepers Angela Kroning and Brian Thicke.
Smales/Whittaker Creeks Report to Date February 09, 2026
To date we have been able to access the hydrological report written by B. Carson following the catastrophic washout on Lower Rd in 2020. Brian then followed up with a tour led by Carson where they walked up Whittaker Cr from the mouth to downstream of the washout. Carson further supplied a local report (A Short History of Cassidy’s Landing, Whitaker Beach and Adjacent Lands, B. Stewart, 2009) that detailed the development of District Lot 2497 on the beach beginning approximately one hundred years previously. Brian and I subsequently visited the Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives, where we were provided with copies of the exhibits including maps.
The Gibsons Landing Story (L. R. Peterson, 1962), The West Howe Sound Story, 1886-1976 (F. J. Van Den Wyngaert, 1980) and Bright Seas, Pioneer Spirits (B. Keller & R. Leslie, 1996) have helped to fill in the history of the area upstream of Whittaker Beach and in the neighbouring Cornwallis and Smales watersheds. A 2003 (with 1999 photos) copy of the SC Habitat Atlas has provided us with a somewhat small-scale map of the area and its roads at that time. I have now acquired a hard copy of the Roberts Creek 1994 OCP, together with the Mt. Elphinstone South Watershed Assessment: Phase 1 & 2 prepared for BCTS, Chinook Business Area, (Polar Geoscience Ltd., 2023) we are starting to assemble a cartographic timeline of the area.
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