Participants in the World Rainbow Gathering in Raft Cove Provincial Park are packing their bags and preparing to head home, after protest websites and government officials shut down the counter-culture gathering.

The park was officially closed on Saturday at noon, after the B.C. Ministry of Environment raised concerns over the well-being of the visitors entering the park, many of them unprepared to deal with the harsh climate of northwestern Vancouver Island near Cape Scott.

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As of Sunday, 106 gathering participants were in camping in the park. B.C. Parks officials were preparing to help them leave on Monday evening.

A 13-passenger van has been chartered by officials to help remove those without a vehicle get to Port Hardy. Many participants hitchhiked to the remote park.

“For those [who] don’t have their own transportation, B.C. Parks staff have offered to shuttle rainbow gatherers from the park to Port Hardy via the North Coast Trail Shuttle,” a spokesman for the ministry said Sunday.

The van is normally used to take hikers to or from the trail head of the new North Coast Trail and the existing Cape Scott Trail.

The first van is scheduled to arrive on Monday evening about 5 p.m. A second commute is planned for Tuesday morning.

Critics of the gathering are relieved to see the end of a four-day ordeal.

“Our goal was the protection of the park — and it’s being handled. It still makes me upset that there are 106 people in there, but B.C. Parks is doing their job,” said North Island resident Terry Eissfeldt, who started the original Facebook page urging for officials to protect the sensitive ecosystem of the park from an expected influx of up to 1,800 people.

The gathering was originally supposed to happen near the Slocan River in southeastern B.C., but the destination was changed after a major fuel spill fouled Lemon Creek and the Slocan and Kootenay rivers.

Raft Cove is a 787-hectare park, often used by surfers, with just two pit toilets and no stores within easy reach. Fresh-water sources are currently dry. Access involves a tough two-kilometre hike to the 300 metre long beach.

— With files from Amy Smart

nwells@timescolonist.com