Turner Creek in the Early Spring

Living in the downtown, I have three options if I want to walk and find some forest - the foreshore trail, Pileated Woods, or Turner Creek.

Sunday morning I decided I needed both a workout and some "nature time", so I chose to hike up Turner Creek. The trail along its length was developed a number of years ago through a partnership with Rotary clubs and Katimavik.

There are a few different ways the trail can be accessed; I started from McGuire Lake, where spring melt water is flowing steadily into the lake.

Turner Creek flowing into McGuire Lake

Early spring flowers are blooming; the two pictures below are of naturalized non-native plants - Glory of the Snow, and Violet.

Glory of the Snow at McGuire Lake

Violets at McGuire Lake

The trail cuts off from the McGuire Lake pedestrian path, and runs below the Trans Canada Highway, heading towards the High School. To follow the creek up the hill requires going through a pedestrian tunnel under the highway. 

Entrance to pedestrian tunnel under highway

High school art students have decorated the walls of the tunnel with some fascinating pieces of work. Here are just a few samplings:

Tunnel Art

Tunnel Art

Tunnel Art

Tunnel Art

The trail starts to go steeply uphill once past the highway.

It skirts the newly named Hilltop Inn (formerly Podollan), and climbs through groves of poplars, birch and fir.

All the time, I heard the sound of burbling creek water -- such a welcome sound after the snows and ice of winter!

Wetland on the creek, above Hilltop Inn

Poplar and birch beside the trail as it climbs

With all the native trees, there is plentiful birdsong along the creek. I heard robins, chickadees, nuthatches, song sparrows, and other song birds that I would need a birder to identify for me.

And I saw - and heard - flickers and a pileated woodpecker.

Okanagan College

The trail emerges at the attractive Okanagan College, and skirts one of several ponds along its length.

Various projects over the years have attempted to focus awareness of the forest, especially for young people.

Sign at the trail near Okanagan College

Okanagan College drumming area

Higher up the creek, near 28th Street

Cedar forest along the Turner Creek Trail at 28th Street

Listening to bird song along the trail, between 28th and 30th St. 

NOTE: this is a large file for those with slow connections.

Turner Creek trail is a treasure within the heart of Salmon Arm. A detailed map of the trail can be found at http://www.shuswaptrails.com/trails.php?area=0&id=23

It skirts housing developments, but there is enough of a forest to provide the experience of "forest bathing" -- soaking up the smells of the forest, its sounds, and the feel of the spongy forest floor.

Courage and Spring

Today I watched a short video prepared by Frances Moore Lappé of the Small Planet Institute. Years ago I read her book Diet for a Small Planet, along with that by Susan George, How the Other Half Dies. Both books changed my ways of thinking about world hunger and over-population. But that's another subject.

Lappé's message in the video was simple: to counteract evil in the world, we need courage, the courage to stand up and speak out when lies are trotted out as truth, the courage to stand up for our convictions.

In a sense, it was a message of hope. If we all acted courageously, as if we had hope, and speak our truth to power, things could be different.

A bit later in the day I walked in a small local park, Peter Jannink Park.

The park is a pocket park sandwiched between Salmon Arm's sewage treatment plant and industrial zoned land on one side, and the lake on the opposite side.

Environment Canada weather station, Peter Jannink Park

On the third side is land under the jurisdiction of Adams Lake Indian Band, and on the fourth is new residential development currently under construction.

This little pocket park is truly multi-use. Environment Canada has a weather station here.

Bench, Peter Jannink Park

The park has a history of having been an area to which industrial fill was dumped, so consequently has a weed problem.

Tansy and Poison Hemlock Seed Heads, Peter Jannink Park

New development bordering Peter Jannink Park

The shallow waters of Shuswap Lake immediately in front of the park are a haven for birds in the spring and summer. Birders often find better birding here than at the wharf in Salmon Arm.

Bird box typically used by swallows, just below Peter Jannink Park. Hard to imagine, but the lake rises to the point that last year water came to the base of the box. Volunteers with SABNES and the Shuswap Naturalists are extending the posts to raise the boxes higher.

 
The Park is popular with people because of the covered shelter which is a rarity in parks these days.

One of the people honoured at the Park is Mary Lou Tapson Jones, a founding member of the Shuswap Naturalists whose passion was botany. I still consult her book "Perilous Charmers", on poisonous plants of the Shuswap. The extract from Blake on the rock below speaks to me of the attitude we need in today's world. "To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower."

We can so easily get caught up in the magnitude of the crises on the planet, the big picture. If we look at the grain of sand, the wildflower, the opening bud, and view the perfection within each, we can find the courage to counteract our despair, to stand up for nature, for truth, for justice.

Buds, Peter Jannink Park

Nature's Turn

I have written mostly about Victoria's urban life in this blog. It's time to acknowledge the presence of nature here.

It is easy to stroll -- even along the oceanfront -- and not pay attention to the natural world on which we depend. I have been walking with a couple of different groups and find that in the throes of conversation with other people, I miss a lot of things I would normally notice if I was out by myself or with Ken.

Yesterday we sat by the water's edge and watched a Black Oystercatcher through the binoculars. He stood on rocks that were being covered with sluicing water as the incoming tide washed over him, sometimes getting completely soaked. But he seemed unperturbed, scooting around the rocks and grabbing at whatever marine life was clinging to them.

Black Oystercatcher.
Source: www.islandlight.ca/cortes-island-oystercatcher-photo-885

The day before we had watched -- without binoculars -- three animals that appeared to be otters, on rocks far out in the ocean. We initially guessed that they must be sea otters, but now understand that sea otters do not usually come this far south. They must have been river otters.

There are many Mergansers and Bufflehead in the waters along Dallas Road.  We are familiar with these ducks from their spring and summer sojourns in the interior, where they come to breed. It was enjoyable watching their feeding behaviour in salt water.

By contrast, I find the over dense population of Mallards at Beacon Hill Park to be an indicator of something out of balance. The photo below shows that the population is so high, they have eroded all the grass in the area. I saw one Ruddy duck, and a number of American Wigeon, mixed in, but 90% of the ducks are Mallards.

Beacon Hill Park is an urban park, not a natural one, and the experience of these children with the ducks is an encounter more zoo-like than anything.

Feeding ducks at Beacon Hill Park

Look Up! Herons in Douglas fir at Beacon Hill Park

We talked with a photographer who had these herons in his scope. They have just returned; he said these were males.


All these experiences of nature have skated around the most essential point, which is that nature's systems provide the fundamental source for life on the planet.

Some use the term "natural capital" - the services that the earth's ecosystems provide us. It is rather a peculiarly modern way of looking at things, that our ecosystems serve us and that we have to put a dollar quantity on the value of the services that they provide. It is an indicator that we cannot value our environment for its intrinsic benefits, or because we are all part of the web of life. Rather, we have to find a dollar value.

Here is one chart that I found that is oriented to the oceans and the ecosystem services they provide - including food sources, but also filtering water, protecting coastlines, and sequestering carbon:

Source: https://oceanwealth.org/ecosystem-services/

Because we have primarily stayed in the James Bay area on this trip, we have not been to the wilder ocean scenes. Here are a couple from our last trip further up the island.

Natural coastline, Courtenay area

When the tide recedes

Life in the city tends to be very separated from nature. I would like to see much more awareness and connection - even in this most "green" of cities.

Recipe for Living a Life

I have been musing about Mary Oliver and her ability with words. Less is always more, not only with poetry but almost everything in life!

Many decades ago I started writing about the challenge of making commitments in this time of uncertainty about the future, and my own tendency to see both sides of a question. Even though I felt passionate about the environment and nature, I found it hard to be an activist on the front lines, because too often I could see things from the other side. I was a thinker, not a "doer" - or so I thought.

My piece on commitment morphed and gained a working title of "Recipe for Living a Life". The subtitle was "Countering Despair and Lack of Hope".

Of course, the piece is not yet finished; the more I read, the more there is to tell. But not for Mary Oliver. She said it all in twelve words:

         Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

Frost, Oregon Grape