The Highwood is also a popular area for low-impact recreation. The planned harvest is located close to Highway 40 on the route from Highwood Junction to Highwood Pass. This incredibly scenic route has many lookouts, recreation areas, and trails. One block is planned right alongside the highway, within 250m of the Lineham Provincial Recreation Area. Others are planned over trails such as Loomis Creek, Odium Pond, Mount Bishop and Hill of the Flowers. 

The Upper Highwood is a key watershed when it comes to flood mitigation risk. Planned harvest areas for 2023 would put clearcut harvest within 200m of the Highwood River along almost 9 km of its length, and within less than 100m along 4 km of that. It would also involve harvest on many steep, erodible slopes.

Spray Lake Sawmills’ own Forest Management Plan outlines how water yield, as measured by a metric called “Equivalent Clearcut Area”, which considers disturbance and regrowth, should be kept at less than 30% (“low risk”). However, one of the sub-watersheds in the Upper Highwood will reach 46% (at the very top end of the “moderate risk” category, with “high risk” reached at 50%), if the planned harvest goes ahead. This is very concerning given the importance of this area for mitigating flood risk – clearcutting results in increased water yield and peak flows.

The South Saskatchewan Regional Plan, which was created to guide land use management for the region, states that “Watershed management and headwaters protection is the priority. Forests will be managed with this as the highest priority (including water storage, recharge and release functions).”