A volunteer group that says it has pumped nearly $3-million into enhancing Vancouver Island’s oldest provincial park is ready to walk away from the investment.

The Heathens is a mountaineering group established in 1982 that has committed to building and maintaining a series of trails within Strathcona Provincial Park.

Members say they’re being forced by the province to sign an unfair and unmanageable agreement, and the fallout from the dispute has even landed some of the volunteers in provincial court.

“We feel that the current mandate is all wrong, and if it continues like this, we risk losing a huge possibility as well as an important legacy,” said Heathens founders Chris Barner.

He estimates the group has put in nearly $3-million in labour and materials to build and maintain nine-and-a-half kilometres of trails within the park.

The Heathens say they’re concerned the province is forcing them to sign agreements that gather volunteers’ personal information and restrict them from speaking about anything in the park they might object to.

“The new volunteer agreement is unsignable for us, it contains elements that we feel are counter to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” said Barner. “We feel that its terms are too broad, and we feel that the administration workload is far too cumbersome.”

He said BC Parks has been punishing the group because it won’t sign the agreement, and that volunteers were fined $500 a day for camping in Strathcona Park

Those fines sparked a protest outside of the Campbell River courthouse when volunteers made their court appearance.

Barner says other groups are also having difficulties with BC Parks, but the president of the Comox District Mountaineering Club says that group has no problems to speak of.

“We’re doing fine,” said president Joe Lumsdon. “We have a relationship with parks and we maintain it. They have their constraints with their government expectations but as far as we’re concerned, we’re fine.”

CTV News reached out to BC Parks but was told it couldn’t comment because of ongoing legal action.

The Heathens said the best way for the group to send a message to BC Parks is to withdraw any future volunteer efforts, leaving the future of the trails up in the air.

 With a report from CTV Vancouver Island's Gord Kurbis