Keith's Hut, a public backcountry hut in the Cerise Creek conservancy, was reportedly broken into last week, the second such break-in since it was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Erika Flavelle of the Keith Flavelle Memorial Hut Society believes the hut was likely accessed sometime Dec. 30, with visible signs of a portable power tool used to cut two separate locks off the front entrance. The front door was also removed, along with a wooden COVID-19 health sign, and a large window shutter was cut down, the Flavelles said.
After first noticing signs of the break-in on Dec. 30, Erika returned the following day, surprised to find smoke billowing out of the chimney and a woman inside.
Not wanting a confrontation, Erika said she gave the woman and her party until the next day to vacate the space, and found it on New Year’s Day in clean condition, with a letter left behind expressing gratitude for the use of the hut and claiming they placed money in the donation box. Erika said she was unsure if it was the same group that broke into the hut.
The incident has been reported to Pemberton RCMP.
Usually a first-come-first-serve public hut that is left unlocked in case of emergency, Keith’s Hut was voluntarily closed by the society in the fall before a public health order officially shuttered it due to the pandemic.
It’s the second time the hut was broken in the past year, said Scott Flavelle, who added that the society didn’t publicize the first incident, as they hadn’t announced the hut’s closure by that point, in late September.
“[A man] hiked up there with [a] woman and his one-year-old child and he decided he really wanted to be in the hut and decided to break the locks,” Scott said of the first break-in. “He also decided it wasn’t a really great thing and he tried to find us. He apologized and did some repairs himself. It was a bit odd.”
The Wendy Thompson Hut, located in the Marriott Basin, is another public-use hut that was ordered closed by Rec Trails and Sites BC in the pandemic—the first time its history. But, like Keith’s Hut, not everyone abided that order.
“Slowly on social media, you’d see pictures of people in the hut. People from the Whistler section would come up during the day and find people’s stuff in the hut,” said Bryce Leigh, president of the Whistler section of the Alpine Club of Canada, which is tasked with maintaining the hut. In response, the club placed locks on the hut this summer for the first time, and boarded up the windows, which has so far curbed unwanted access, Leigh said.
For Leigh, the recent break-in is a sign of the general lack of awareness some have of who actually maintains these largely volunteer-run backcountry huts.
“The tooth fairy doesn’t come by at night and clean this place,” he said with a laugh. “There seems to be this lack of etiquette in the backcountry and respect for some of the things people do, and that’s a challenge for us.”
