Two 130-year roads, ~150 families, and a decision the public was never allowed to see.

You do not have to do everything at once. Do them in order — each one is small. If a step feels hard, ask a younger friend, neighbour, or family member to sit with you for ten minutes. Doing just Steps 1–3 this week already makes a real difference.

1. Ask for the road-decision papers Do this first · this week

   Scroll down to Section 9, "Copy-paste toolkit." Find the box "FOI #1 — Rady Creek deactivation decision file" and press the blue Copy button. Open your email, paste it in, and where it says [Your name] type your real name, address, email and phone. Send it to FOI.Requests@gov.bc.ca. By law they must reply within 30 business days.

2. Ask for the consultation records Same day

   In the same Section 9, use the box "FOI #2 — Consultation with affected owners." Press Copy, paste into a new email, add your details, and send it to the same address. This asks: were residents ever consulted? (The government's own papers say no.)

3. Email your MLA and ask her to pause August 24 This week

   Your representative is Brittny Anderson. Email brittny.anderson.MLA@leg.bc.ca. Keep it short: "I am a resident affected by the Rady Creek / Incomappleux road closure. Please ask the Minister to pause the August 24 work until residents are properly consulted." Then phone her constituency office too — a phone call and an email together carry more weight.

4. Get free legal help to try to STOP August 24 Start now · this is the one that can halt the machines

   A court can order the work paused before it happens — but only if someone asks in time. Contact West Coast Environmental Law (their Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund gives free legal help): go to wcel.org and click "Get Help," or call them. Tell them: "A 130-year-old public road is being permanently destroyed on August 24 with no consultation, and we want to ask a court to pause it." Ask them to help or to refer a local lawyer.

5. File a free complaint about being ignored Any time

   The BC Ombudsperson investigates unfair treatment by government. It is free. Go to bcombudsperson.ca or call 1-800-567-3247. Tell them residents were never consulted and the road is being permanently destroyed.

6. If they ignore your papers or black out the answers When it happens

   Contact the Information & Privacy Commissioner — this is the office that forces the government to answer. Email info@oipc.bc.ca or call 250-387-5629. Say: "The Ministry did not respond to my FOI in the legal time," or "they hid too much of the answer."

7. Tell a reporter About 10 days before Aug 24

   Local papers already follow this story. Email one reporter a few short sentences and a link to this page. Good ones: the Revelstoke Review, Nelson Star, and The Narwhal. The simple hook: "No money to maintain the road, but money to destroy it — and residents were never consulted."

One road closure is a budget line. Two permanent closures in the same small valley — one of them a road the Ministry doesn't even formally administer — is a policy direction.

This is the centre of the file. From the Province's own confidential decision briefing on the Incomappleux Conservancy:

The confidential decision briefing, released under FOI EML-2022-23345 (internal pages 33–34). Read it directly — the highlighted passages need no interpretation.

• 2006
  Rockfall damages the Crevice Bridge on the Incomappleux FSR.
• 2017
  Ministry gates the road — later cited as proof access was "already" gone.
• 2021
  Road formally designated for deactivation. Rady Creek clubs sign a caribou stewardship deal (Mar 24), then learn of Rady's deactivation ~a month later.
• 2023
  Jan 25: Premier Eby announces the Incomappleux Conservancy (58,654 ha). No-registration reserve set over minerals; ELUA corridor set over the roads.
• Aug 24
  Rady Creek re-contour scheduled to begin. Permanent.

Follow it on the record. The valley held "a large number" of mineral tenures. Here is how they were handled:

Put the pieces together and the regional pattern is consistent and legitimate to scrutinize: access and resource use across the Trout Lake country are being shut down under a conservation-and-reconciliation banner — and the small operators, residents, and recreationists carry the cost, with little or no consultation. That is a documented governance story. It requires no hidden villain.

Ranked by how well the evidence fits. Honest about which is proven and which is a lead.

1. Documented The Provincial budget. The stated reason is "insufficient funding" to maintain aging bridges. Permanent decommissioning is the cheapest outcome for the Ministry.
2. Documented The conservation outcome. A roadless protected area is the explicit goal of the Conservancy and its funders (NCC, Wyss, Wilburforce, Teck, Canada).
3. Open question The exclusive heli-ski tenure. CMH Galena — heli-pad in Trout Lake, ~1,080 km² Selkirk tenure, owned by Denver-based Alterra (Crown family / KSL Capital). Removing public ground access raises the value of exclusive Crown-land tenure — if the tenure overlaps the valley. That overlap is not yet proven and is not asserted here.

These are not claims. Each needs a document before it belongs anywhere public. Listed so the work is transparent.

Two angles that may carry the most weight — and neither is on any filing yet. Both point to authority the Province does not fully control.

Ready to send. Fill the [bracketed] parts and submit BC requests at gov.bc.ca/FOIrequest. The OIPC review goes to the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner (oipc.bc.ca).

To: FOI.Requests@gov.bc.ca
Cc: FOR.SelkirkDistrictOffice@gov.bc.ca, FOR.Minister@gov.bc.ca, brittny.anderson.MLA@leg.bc.ca

Requester: [Your name], [mailing address], [email], [phone]

To: Ministry of Forests, Information Access Operations

I request the following records from 1 January 2019 to present concerning the decision to deactivate and/or decommission the Rady Creek Forest Service Road near Trout Lake, BC:

1. The deactivation/decommissioning decision and the specific statutory authority relied upon for it (including, if Rady Creek is not a designated Forest Service Road, the legal basis for the Province re-contouring a non-status road);
2. The deactivation prescription and any professional engineer's assessment or report;
3. Any briefing notes, decision notes, or approval memos, and the identity of the decision-maker;
4. The caribou Government Actions Regulation (GAR) order and habitat rationale relied upon;
5. All records of notice to, consultation with, or correspondence received from affected property owners, tenure/claim holders, and recreation stakeholders regarding Rady Creek.

This matter is time-sensitive: decommissioning is scheduled to begin August 24. I request expedited processing on public-interest grounds and a fee waiver under s.75(5)(b) FOIPPA (rural road access affecting local residents and recreation users).

Requester: [Your name], [mailing address], [email], [phone]

To: Ministry of Forests, Information Access Operations

I request all records from 1 January 2017 to present of notice to, consultation with, or correspondence received from private property owners, leaseholders, trappers, guide-outfitters, or recreation stakeholders regarding access on the Rady Creek Forest Service Road and the Incomappleux River Forest Service Road and their deactivation. Please include any public comment submissions, letters, emails, meeting notes, and the Ministry's responses. If a formal consultation process was conducted, please include the record of who was notified and by what method.

I request a fee waiver under s.75(5)(b) FOIPPA on public-interest grounds.

Requester: [Your name], [mailing address], [email], [phone]

To: Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, Information Access Operations

I request all records from 1 January 2019 to present concerning mineral or placer tenures within or adjacent to the Incomappleux Conservancy, including:
1. The "Revelstoke Area Mineral Tenures Valuation Report" and any draft versions and attached maps;
2. The Treasury Board submission (and its outcome) to fund expropriation of mineral claims within the Conservancy boundary;
3. Correspondence regarding buy-out, retirement, compensation, expropriation, or exclusion of any tenure in the area, and the identities of the affected tenure holders;
4. Records establishing the "no registration reserve" under s.22 of the Mineral Tenure Act over the Incomappleux Lands.

I request a fee waiver under s.75(5)(b) FOIPPA on public-interest grounds.

To: Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner
PO Box 9038 Stn Prov Govt, 4th Floor, 947 Fort Street, Victoria BC V8W 9A4 (or oipc.bc.ca)

Re: Request for Review under s.52 FOIPPA — Ministry file EML-2022-23345

I request a review of the decision to withhold records responsive to the request for "Records related to Incomappleux Park (1/1/2017 to 12/12/2022)," released 2023-04-19. Grounds:

1. Over-broad application of s.22 (personal privacy). The material concerns a public land-use and road-decommissioning decision affecting ~150 titled properties. I do not seek any individual's personal information; the public body should sever genuinely personal details and release the substantive content rather than withholding whole pages.

2. Discretionary exemptions s.13 (policy advice), s.17 (economic interests) and s.21 (third-party business). Given the strong public interest in why the only road access to ~150 properties is being permanently removed, and how public funds were used to expropriate mineral claims, I ask the Commissioner to review whether discretion was reasonably exercised and whether factual/background material was improperly withheld.

3. Adequacy of search and the duty to sever (s.4(2)). I ask the Commissioner to confirm an adequate search and the least redaction necessary.

Enclosed: a copy of the original request and the response letter. I am willing to narrow scope to expedite release.

To: Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (oipc.bc.ca)

Re: Request for Review under s.52 FOIPPA — Ministry file EML-2022-23345 — mineral claim buyout

I request a review of the redactions applied to records concerning the buyout, expropriation, exclusion, and valuation of mineral claims within the Incomappleux Conservancy boundary, released under EML-2022-23345.

Specifically, I ask the Commissioner to review the withholding — under s.21 (third-party business) and s.22 (personal privacy) — of:
1. the identities of the mineral-tenure holders who were compensated, bought out, or whose claims were expropriated or excluded; and
2. the valuation amounts and total public funds involved (including the "Revelstoke Area Mineral Tenures Valuation Report," its drafts, and the related Treasury Board submission).

Grounds:
- Overriding public interest in disclosure. This concerns the expenditure of public money from the Treasury to acquire private interests. The public is entitled to know how much public money was paid, and to whom.
- s.21 is not intended to shield the business dealings of parties paid from the public purse, nor a public body's own valuation and expenditure records; and s.22 does not protect the identity of parties receiving public funds.
- I ask the Commissioner to require severing of any genuinely personal detail while releasing the substance: the parties compensated and the amounts of public money spent.

Enclosed: a copy of the original request and the response letter (file EML-2022-23345, dated 2023-04-19).

Requester: [Your name], [mailing address], [email], [phone]

To: Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation (and the Chief Permitting Officer's office), Information Access Operations

I request all records from 1 January 2020 to present concerning the processing timelines, internal decisions, and communications on Notice of Work (NoW) and mineral exploration permit applications in the Revelstoke and Kootenay mining divisions, including:
1. Any records that track, compare, or report on permit processing times;
2. Any direction, guidance, or decision to prioritize, deprioritize, hold, or expedite specific applications;
3. All briefing notes, decision notes, and correspondence regarding the Taranis Resources / Thor exploration permit and the delay in issuing it;
4. Any records referring to applicants who challenged, complained about, or litigated a permit decision.

I request a fee waiver under s.75(5)(b) FOIPPA on public-interest grounds (fair and timely treatment of resource-permit applicants).

This is a free, public government database. No login, nothing to install. It shows who holds mineral claims — by name. Here's how to search the Incomappleux / Trout Lake area.

1. Open the map

   Go to mtonline.gov.bc.ca and click the green "Mineral Map" button (under Map Viewer). It opens right in your browser.

2. Go to the valley

   Zoom and pan the map to Trout Lake / the Incomappleux Valley (southeast of Revelstoke). The coloured shapes are mineral claims ("tenures").

3. Click a claim to see the owner

   Pick the "Identify" tool, then click a coloured claim. A panel shows the tenure number, the owner's name, the "good-to" date, and the claim's history.

4. Follow the owner

   Click the owner's name to see every other claim that same owner holds — that's how you map who controls the ground.

5. Save the proof

   Screenshot everything — tenure number, owner, dates — with the date visible. Records change; capture them now.

1. FOI response, Ministry of Energy, Mines & Low Carbon Innovation, file EML-2022-23345 (response package + original records; briefing note marked CONFIDENTIAL, p.33)
2. BC Snowmobile Federation — "Access at Risk: Incomappleux Forest Service Road Update" · bcsf.org
3. Ministry of Forests — Incomappleux FSR Deactivation FAQ (gov.bc.ca, Selkirk resource-roads)
4. BC Snowmobile Federation — "Trout Lake Rady Creek FSR" · bcsf.org
5. Change.org — petition, deactivation of Silver Cup Ridge Trail & Rady Ck Road
6. MINING.COM — "Taranis Resources wins exploration permit after legal battle"
7. Nelson Star / Mining Connection — Taranis v. BC, permitting delays, Thor project near Trout Lake
8. Province of BC — "New conservancy protects rare ecosystems in Incomappleux Valley," 2023PREM0005-000087
9. The Narwhal; Canada's National Observer — Incomappleux Conservancy coverage, Jan 2023