Every gold rush comes to an end — and sometimes they leave the land a little worse for wear.

As marijuana legalization looms, there are fortunes to be made. Small towns like Williams Lake, in the B.C. Interior, are venturing to become major players in the cannabis industry, while licensed medicinal growers are buying up swaths of prime B.C. farmland — land that could soon be ripe for recreational crops.

It’s a trajectory that Victoria’s Ken Marriette fears could leave the province’s fertile