Field Trips

There are three concurrent field trip options being offered for the afternoon of Friday, September 30th plus a non-field trip experiential learning option.

Note:  Please bring your own water bottle and a light snack (if desired) for your field trip.

  1.     Still Creek Watershed: The City of Vancouver is almost entirely paved. We’ll take a headwaters-to-mouth exploration of one of the only surface streams in the City of Vancouver, which flows through a watershed that is 75% urbanized. We’ll explore the many facets of the Still Creek watershed including the Renfrew Ravine, community art installations, the uppermost site of salmon spawning, Burnaby Lake, green infrastructure projects in Lower Hume Park and a soon-to-be restored river delta.  Experts and community champions will join us along the way to answer questions and share their stories.
  2.     Restoration Round-up: Restoration champions in Metro Vancouver are working to improve the ecological function of spaces around the region. We’ll visit Vancouver’s Olympic Village to observe passive stormwater treatment in Hinge Park; Creekway and New Brighton Parks to see phase one of a stream reconnection and salt marsh construction project; and the MacKay Creek Estuary to see a completed, large-scale estuary restoration in North Vancouver that’s part of a broader plan to improve estuaries along the north shore.
  3.     Metro Vancouver drinking water watershed tour of Capilano watershed:             Metro Vancouver manages three protected watersheds to provide 2.4 million residents with a clean, reliable and affordable supply of drinking water. These watersheds cover an area of land 150 times the size of Stanley Park and are closed to protect our water supply from human disturbance. As a result approximately 60,000 hectares of forested land provides a significant amount of space for numerous species to exist in their natural habitat. The health of these ecosystems is an important natural asset to our region; one that contributes greatly to the health and vitality of the place we call home. Join a tour to the Capilano watershed where you will visit Cleveland Dam, see views from the north end of the reservoir, walk around historical settling ponds, and visit an alpine lake. The tour will take three hours, departing at 12 noon, with seating on the bus limited to 35 passengers.
  4.      Transformational Workshop on Water Ethics and Cross-Cultural Values:               This 3 hour workshop is an collective inquiry and interactive exploration of our ethical relationships with and through water. Indigenous arts-based processes will be used to create a transformational space and facilitate sharing of that which is often unspoken at watershed table discussions. Participants will be supported in identifying, expressing and listening to our water beliefs, relationships, teachings, laws and values as they underlie and influence how we want our watersheds to be governed. Touchstone questions for the inquiry are: What is the collective innovation that flows from our water ethics? and What can we create together from the convergence of people from many watersheds when we truly place water at the center?  The workshop will be co-facilitated by Kelly Bannister (Co-director, POLIS Project, UVic) and Vicki Kelly (Indigenous Artist and Scholar, Faculty of Education, SFU). For further information contact Kelly at: kel(at)uvic.ca