History Lesson About Pacific Spirit Park

Walking in Pacific Spirit Park

Several times a week I walk in Pacific Spirit Park, which covers 860 hectares, with 55km of trails, but didn't know much about the history of it until last week. 

Ryan Regier of the Pacific Spirit Park Society gave a talk recently to some neighbourhood residents and I sat in on most of the presentation.

Douglas Fir trees are second growth

He first showed a news video of the park's official opening on April 23, 1989, with then Premier Bill Vander Zalm and his wife Lillian booed by the Musqueam people, who inhabited this land long before Europeans settled in British Columbia, but had no say about the park, let alone its name.

It didn't seem like Vander Zalm thought to consult the Musqueam, or assumed they would use the land to build casinos, and thought he would pre-empt them by declaring the area a provincial park.

As Regier tells it, trees there used to be some of the tallest in the world before settlers came; it's because the Musqueam would only harvest the bark, and then the trees would grow back the bark and become bigger.

However, after the Europeans arrived in the 1850s, they saw the forest and by the 1890s chopped down all the Douglas Fir trees in what is now the park and used the wood to build most of the houses in Vancouver. Those trees were known as the old growth forest, and the ones standing today are called second growth, which are quite tall, but very skinny.

The park covers 860 hectares

An interesting fact is the Musqueam were living in the area for at least 5,000 years, if not up to 8,000 years ago. Camosun Bog gives us a good idea of what happened to the forest because the trees develop pollen, which falls into the bog and kind of like glacier ice, you can analyse what trees existed in the forest over time. How cool is that?

There are still some old growth trees left, but they are standing on the cliff above Wreck Beach, not the best place for them to flourish.

Regier says when the loggers chopped down trees, they would pour kerosene over the blade as a lubricant... not surprisingly it caused many fires in the forest! There was a large forest fire in 1919 that burned one-quarter of the park, and thankfully because of Camosun Bog, it stopped the fire from spreading to the residential area nearby.

The bog used to be quite large, but then when the University of British Columbia was building Sedgewick Library (now Koerner Library), the dirt that was dug up for the below ground library was dumped in Camosun Bog!

There is a group of volunteers called "crazy boggers" who are trying to restore the bog every Saturday  morning for two hours. 

Mostly Douglas Fir in the forest

It's great to see so many people love the park like me (perhaps much more!) and that we have a common goal of preserving it as naturally as possible.

Learning from Last Year's Fire

Fire at West 41st and Collingwood

Last August my parents and I were sitting at home about to eat dinner when we heard three big booms south of us.

I went outside to take a look and didn't see anything.

But then there were more explosion sounds and I walked down to the end of the block. From this vantage point looking south down the hill I could see a big black plume of smoke south east of us. As I walked down two blocks closer to the fire I saw giant flames beyond the tall trees. It was a frightening sight.

Saw giant black plume of smoke, fire

Later on social media there were videos of the six-storey building that was under construction was completely on fire. Another clip showed the building crane "melt" and fall away from the site, crashing onto the road. Luckily no one was there, and the fire truck had just moved away from that spot!

Then there was a commotion across the street from us -- our neighbour's roof was smouldering thanks to flying embers. The fire fighters told us to survey our roofs to see if there was any smoke. Luckily we were OK, but it was a scary lesson in how fires can easily start.

This evening three fire servicemen from the Vancouver Fire Rescue Services came to our neighbourhood meeting to talk about that fire, and two of them were on the ground fighting it.

They explained that since 2009 the City of Vancouver has allowed wood construction for six-storey buildings which was adopted in the building code. According to these fire service men, these buildings are faster to build, use sustainable material, and in this case, the rules around construction and safety were all followed before the fire. 

Unfortunately they still don't know the cause of the fire; a private investigator is working on the case for insurance purposes, but will not share their findings with the fire service...

The building was near completion, with insulation, a very light material stored on the roof -- these were the embers that flew several blocks away onto our porches and roofs causing a few fires here and there.

So when the firemen arrived, the fire was so hot, they had to wear their fire gloves right away. Luckily fire prevention materials were installed in the house next to the construction site which saved the other houses further along from bursting into flames from the sheer heat.

Embers landed at our home

Nevertheless, when they tried to fight the fire on the construction site, the water completely dissipated because the fire was so hot. They could only make sure the other houses did not catch fire and that the occupants were evacuated. No one was killed, but the crane fell onto a house, and the person happened to be in the washroom, and the crane missed him! The firefighters had to extract him from the window.

There are 21 fire stations in the city, but they were also pre-occupied with a big fire that engulfed an abandoned apartment building on East 10th. Hours later the fire near us erupted.

The VFRS called on Richmond and Burnaby to help out -- Richmond came because they are on the same radio frequency, Burnaby is on a different one. Richmond was helpful in putting out smaller fires in the area, but it showed the VFRS need to know how to deploy people when there's more than one major fire. The fire captain also admitted he had no idea how thirsty his firefighters were until they said they needed water.

VFRS learned a lot from the fire, such as the need to communicate with the public, staffing issues, and that cranes can collapse in fires, and calling for help from other jurisdictions. Early next year people with smartphones will receive messages in case you live in a certain area where there is a fire and give instructions on what to do.

As for homeowners, it's best to change from cedar shingle roofs to asphalt ones, which we just did this summer. They suggested ensuring gutters are clean, and try to keep trees a maximum height of three metres tall, or at least prune as much as possible and keep yards tidy. Firewood should not be stacked up by the house, and if there is a fire nearby, close the windows and turn on the garden hose and keep the house as wet as possible.

It was a stimulating discussion and we all learned a lot! Needless to say we thanked the three fire services men for their work in putting out the fire eventually and keeping the rest of us safe!

Picture of the Day: Pileated Woodpecker

A Pileated Woodpecker pecking at a tree

Yesterday during my walk in Pacific Spirit Park, I heard a knocking kind of noise. I looked to my left and saw a woodpecker! Specifically a Pileated woodpecker which is native to North America. 

He/she was not high up on the tree but just above my head, about a metre and a half away. Unlike the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker, who would drill a hole into a tree in seconds, this one would lean back then peck at the wood, with the chips flying, then crane his neck back, turning it left and maybe right and then his beak would chisel into the wood again.

The bird with a red trim at the top followed by black and white on its head, and the black the rest of its body, continued with its task to either create a cavity to raise its young, or try to extract insects from the tree.

Pileated woodpeckers are also known for making rectangular carvings in trees and this one did too!  

Picture of the Day: Fall Colours

Leaves are changing their colours now

After several days of rain and overcast skies, today we had a brilliant burst of sunshine and blue skies.

The leaves are changing colour and when the wind blows, they fall off their branches, drifting like snow.

It's not a fun task raking up leaves, especially when the trees aren't completely bare yet!

But I can't help but admire the trees looking radiant against the blue sky. 

Cat Stuck in a Tree Makes the News

An arborist makes her way up to rescue the cat at the tree top

Lots of drama in Surrey today with news of a cat stuck in a tree -- a really tall tree for three days.

When Samantha Decamillis was walking her dog on Saturday she spotted the black cat at the top of a tree.

She called the fire department and the City of Surrey about rescuing the cat, but no response until Decamillis said she notified the media.

Today animal services came out, but weren't sure what to do, and got an arborist to climb up the tree. It has no foliage at the top, which means it's a dead tree.

When the arborist finally made it near the top she tried to get the cat into her net, but at first it was terrified of her and didn't want to go in. But in her second attempt, the arborist pushed the cat into the net and there were loud cheers from down below.

However, soon after, the freaked out cat managed to jump out of the net and fell to the ground and was seen scampering away.

Onlookers couldn't find the cat and hope it's OK. They are just relieved it is out of the tree where it had nothing to eat or drink.

The cat has definitely used up one of its nine lives today!

Picture of the Day: Smiling Tree Stump

A welcoming sign in the forest!

Earlier this week I went to another part of Pacific Spirit Park, north of 16th Avenue, to walk around the forest.

Just so I didn't wander too far, I followed a route that was an elongated loop. As I walked by a tree stump I was surprised to see it was smiling!

The things you find in the forest...

 

Photo of the Day: Snow in the Forest

Walking in a winter wonderland today

It has been snowing for the past two days and needless to say I've been shovelling each day, struggling to keep up with the deluge of the white stuff!

Students were thrilled to have no school today and stayed at home, making snow angels, or sliding down hills on toboggans, and making snowmen.

A beautiful sight in Pacific Spirit Park

This afternoon I walked to Pacific Spirit Park, expecting to have to tromp through fresh snow, but found that it was somewhat "paved", making it relatively easy to walk. 

I saw people walking their dogs, a cross-country skier, two women jogging(!) and a guy who wore shorts as he ran. His legs looked painfully red. Why try to act so macho when it's zero degrees and snow everywhere?

In any event, it was a magical sight walking along the route and seeing the trees covered in snow -- it almost felt like being on a movie set for Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 

What's funny about walking in the snow is seeing yellow spots next to tree trunks or posts because dogs have left their marks! 

Picture of the Day: Bob Ross Ornament

Bob Ross Christmas ornaments!

Yesterday I checked out a T.J. Maxx outlet and Christmas is in full swing in the discount department store in Palm Springs. There's an array of ugly Christmas sweaters (flamingos wearing sunglasses, the Grinch, and Scooby Doo), Christmas-themed pyjamas, gift tags, wrapping paper and even Christmas toys for dogs.

And then there are Christmas ornaments. 

One that caught my eye was a figurine in the likeness of Bob Ross!

I remember as a kid watching his TV shows where this hippy-looking guy with big hair would paint scenery from his imagination and they would always involve trees.

He was known for repeating the phrase, "let's adds some happy little trees" and using a thick brush would add dabs of wet oil paint on a relatively dark background and then bit by bit the blobs in different shades of green would become trees.

Watching his show was like witnessing magical paint suddenly become a painting. And it was his soothing voice that people today remember about him too. And that big round curly hair on his head.

While Ross has made a resurgence in popular culture thanks to him being spoofed in TV programs, films and even video games, it's was quite the surprise to see him as a Christmas ornament, holding a big brush in his right hand, and hugging three Christmas trees.

I wonder -- who has bought and put him on their Christmas tree?

Bomb Cyclone Hits Vancouver

Some fallen trees on the walking paths in Pacific Spirit Park

I have a good excuse for not being able to blog last night -- there was a bomb cyclone going through our area, which caused a blackout on various parts of Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

A bomb cyclone is not a made-up term, but one that weather forecasters have used for a while, but is rarely seen here. It's when masses of warm and cool air collide to create spiralling winds, and in this case they were swirling counter-clockwise, and there was also a rapid atmospheric pressure drop over 24 millibars (the unit to measure air pressure) in 24 hours. 

There were strong winds up to 70km/hr last night

Last night it formed around 400 km west of Tofino, BC and then went up Vancouver Island recording winds of up to 170km. It caused severe damage in terms of fallen trees and lots of electricity outages that are still ongoing as it is hard for BC Hydro crews to get to these areas (with the fallen trees on roads and highways).

Winds of up to 70km/h blew into Vancouver. Last night we had an early dinner in a restaurant, and when we came out just after 8pm there were strong gusts and some rain, but we didn't think too much of it. However, when we got closer to home we could see blocks of completely dark homes, and one of them was ours.

There wasn't much we could do except light up some candles, turn on flashlights and go to bed, around 10pm.

The power went back on at 1.15am... how do I know? Because a neighbour's house alarm went off, and was not immediately turned off... and then it went off again 30 minutes later. 

A lot of twigs and branches on the ground

Needless to say this morning I didn't get enough sleep!

I ventured out late morning to Pacific Spirit Park to survey the damage and while there were lots of twigs and branches on the ground, it was sad to see several trees had fallen overnight -- the ones along the walking paths. It will take the park rangers a few days to clear these routes.

Picture of the Day: Autumn Colours

Brilliant fall colours are on display

There's a lot of noise in the streets these days. It's either the scratching sound of people raking leaves, or the annoying buzz of leaf blowers, using the sheer force of air to push leaves off lawns -- only to have them covered with again the next day.

Some trees have already lost all their leaves, their branches awkwardly bare, while others are only now starting to turn from green to yellow to red. It's a magnificent sight to see these brilliant colours, and it's only on autumn.

I can't get over how stunning these trees look, especially on a clear blue day.

One of the benefits of living in Vancouver, though these days we have to bundle up! 

A Visit to Blake Garden

Beautiful green views over the city

A relative who lives in the Bay Area took us to Blake Garden today, a public garden north of the UC Berkeley campus in an area called Kensington. We had to go up hills and along narrow roads before we reached the entrance.

It's free admission, with entrance at a pedestrian gate off to the side. There's no paper map to follow so it's best to just wander around and the paths eventually meet up with each other. The garden is 10.5 acres which includes Blake House, which is supposed to be the residence of the president of the University of California. 

Giant flowers under blue skies today

But upon closer inspection you can see it's deserted and empty, and not maintained. We asked a gardener working on the property about it and she said the last president lived there 15 years ago and since then successive presidents prefer to live closer to the campus. The place has also fallen into disrepair and would need a huge budget to not only renovate the home but also maintain it. Not exactly a priority at this time, which is too bad, but at least the garden is kept up using organic methods.

The house includes a long rectangular reflecting pool that is fed fresh water from a grotto. Upon closer inspection of the manmade pool there were giant Japanese carp swimming in there! They got excited to see me, thinking I would feed them and came swarming around, but then realised I did not bring anything, and there's also a sign warning visitors not to feed them human or fish food, as they are already well fed.

Twin Japanese girls and their parents came to have a picnic by the pool and the siblings were excited to see the fish. One of them counted how many and rushed back to report the number to her parents.

Blake House in the background

Wandering around the garden we were impressed in particular by a giant magnolia tree. We'd never seek such a big tree with big leaves and big flowers in a creamy yellow colour. While the garden tries to maintain things as natural as possible, many of the 1,500 species of flowers and shrubs did not have labels so we either had to guess or didn't know what they were. 

Nevertheless the view was beautiful -- down below we could see San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. The garden is quite compact, as it abutted some public roads and residential area. There's a mini redwood forest but we didn't go in, and instead admired some Asian-inspired ceramic sculptures near the Blake House, as well as the numerous flora and fauna.

There was also an area with a sign that says "caterpillar X-ing" and some milkweed grown there to help foster more butterflies, and there were a lot of succulents and flowers, a few roses and even an artichoke tree with artichokes growing on it!

Blake Garden is a lovely place to walk around and immerse yourself in nature for a few hours!

Massive magnolia flower!

Blake Garden

70 Rincon Road

Kensington, CA

Picture of the Day: A Tree of Resilience

An old buckeye tree near the Berkeley Faculty Club

Today we went to the UC Berkeley campus to attend a lovely wedding in the forest called Stephen T Mather Redwood Grove. Just across from the Botanical Garden is the forest grove, where there is an outdoor amphitheatre. 

It was a beautiful setting, simple, natural and best of all cool with the trees acting as organic canopies shading us from the sun.

Afterwards we headed to the university faculty club for refreshments followed by dinner and dancing.

When we walked towards the faculty club we were struck by this tree. It looked very pale and we wondered if it was dead and wandered closer to take a look.

On the tips of the branches there were small green leaves! So it was indeed still alive.

The tree is called buckeye, and this one seems to be a very old one. The trunk is also quite impressive -- is it one tree with two trunks or two trees sharing the trunk? 

It's definitely a model of resilience, somehow managing to stay alive! 

Spotting Black Bears in the Ketchikan Rainforest

Looking up at the many trees in the rainforest

This morning we arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska, the last port of call on our cruise. It's known as the salmon capital of the world because five species of salmon can be found here: chum, sockeye, king, silver and pink. Apparently chum is nicknamed "dog salmon" because it's only good for mushing dogs to eat.

And we are one month away from the start of the salmon run, where the fish return to their birthplace to spawn and then sadly die... 

Black vertical bear claw marks

The town is also known for having the most totem poles in the world and you do see them around town, though they seem to be much smaller than the ones found in Vancouver. They are made of cedar too, the wood of choice for carving.

Ketchikan's population is around 8,000, while the entire island is 14,000. When it's tourist season the population doubles to service thousands of tourists who come daily. That's right. Today there were five cruise ships docked in Ketchikan. 

I signed up for a walk in a rainforest, named the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary, which was about a 20-minute ride from the pier. Both our drivers to and from the sanctuary were funny and entertaining with their stories of living in the town. Almost all the young people I've encountered here are in Alaska to earn money, but also some genuinely love the outdoors and the lifestyle. 

Our guide for the rainforest walk wasn't a local but from Montana. Nevertheless, she seemed to know what she was doing as she took a dozen of us on a 1 mile walk around the trail. We were told this area gets 13-16ft of rain per year, which compares to Seattle at 5-7ft of rain. In addition Ketchikan only gets 2-3ft of snow per year, so it's more wet than cold.

The rainforest, which is part of the Tongass National Forest, reminded me of Pacific Spirit Park but with a lot more moss and narrower trails. The guide told us interesting facts about things we saw along the way, such as skunk cabbage grown on the ground are eaten by bears as a laxative, and there are berries grown here such as salmonberry, huckleberry, and blackberry. The blackberry's leaves have medicinal uses too.

A tree that grew from a nurse log

She told us 90 percent of this rainforest's trees are either the western hemlock or the sitka spruce. How can you tell the difference between the two? The western hemlock has stripey bark like bacon, whereas the sitka spruce's bark are shaped like fish scales. 

The forest floor is not deep when it comes to soil, so the roots spread out, or in some cases, young trees will gain its nutrients from fallen or dead trees called nurse logs. They can have up to 100 years' worth of nutrients stored up for "baby" trees. 

Our guide showed us a tiny sapling and explained it was 5-7 years old, and a "teenager" was about 50 years old. A mature tree could be up to 500 years old or even 1,000 years old. And the moss hanging on many of the trees? They are called "old man beards" and they are sterile enough to be used to bandage wounds; I was told a while ago that they make good toilet paper!

She also showed us a tree trunk that had bear claw marks on it, as the bear had climbed up the tree!

Not long after we saw a live black bear in front of us which was quite the excitement. Our guide advised us to wait for a few minutes to give the bear some space to leave. And to our left we could see two cubs running around in the forest. 

See the young bear in the stream in the middle?

We spotted the bear again this time under the wooden elevated walkway we were on, and then further in the distance in a grassy area in low tide. There is a stream that leads to the salmon hatchery and this is where the bears are waiting for the salmon to return. The area gets high tide and low tide twice a day which is an interesting fact. 

There were also two bald eagles in the distance circling around in the sky. Hope they didn't think we were lunch...

All of us on the tour were so thrilled to see the black bears, while our guide was probably relieved nothing happened! She added we were so lucky to have blue skies as it had been raining for three weeks straight!

Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary

4085 Tongass Avenue

Ketchikan, Alaska

A Warm Visit to Bloedel Conservatory

The Bloedel Conservatory this afternoon

It's been a miserable several days in Vancouver with rain and cold temperatures, but today the sun peeked out of the clouds and they were blown away to reveal and gorgeous blue sky.

I took a friend for lunch to celebrate her birthday at Seasons in the Park and the view of the city was so clear. 

Afterwards we took a stroll around the quarry garden before checking out the Bloedel Conservatory, a large domed indoor tropical garden. 

Valentine is a charming parrot

It was named after Prentice Bloedel, who was co-founder of Macmillan Bloedel, British Columbia's biggest forestry company in the mid-20th century. He pitched in C$1.4 million to build the conservatory, fountains and surrounding plaza.

The "triodetic" dome design was inspired by the Expo '67 dome in Montreal. Its diameter is 140 feet across and was made from aluminium pipe triangles and 1,500 plexiglass bubbles. The design was conceived in 1966 and was officially opened in 1969. Over half a million people visited it the first year.

In 2009 the Parks Board voted to closer the conservatory because of low attendance, but with the Winter Olympics coming up, several groups formed to save it. The following year it was taken under the wing of the VanDusen Botanical Garden, which is why VanDusen members can go into the conservatory for free.

Inside there was lots to see, from lots of plants and flowers to birds, particularly parrots and cockatoos.

There were lots of hydrangeas and posies, but also orchids that flourished in the warm and humid environment. Looking up there were banana trees with their large rectangular-shaped leaves and their trunks were very smooth to the touch!

Lovely orchids in the indoor garden

We also enjoyed watching the various birds in the domed garden. A few were allowed to roam around freely, though the parrots were either chained to their posts (with umbrellas nearby to block the sun). Carmen and Maria are colourful green-winged macaws, while Kramer is a lovely dusted pink cockatoo. 

Valentine is another parrot who showed off his wings to us, while Rudy is an African grey parrot who who made wolf whistle sounds to my friend! We tried to teach him wei? in Cantonese but he didn't seem to pick it up!

Fact of the Day: HK's Pathetic Tree Recycling Rate

A man inspects a tree felled by the typhoon

Hong Kong is still cleaning up after Super Typhoon Saola, with 1,800 tonnes of tree waste. Most of it comprises of leaves and branches. But get this -- the city has only one wood recycler and it only takes logs. 

As a result only 15 percent of the tree waste is recycled into wood products, like boards, beams, chips and sawdust.

People make their way through tree debris

The rest goes into the landfill.

Green groups are criticising the recycler, Y Park for not taking more of the wood waste and saying it should be broken down for composting to be used in future parks or maintaining current ones.

Also shocking is that Y Park was only set up in 2021 to "rachet up the scale of yard waste recycling and diversify the types of recyclable products," according to its website.

But it was because of what happened after Super Typhoon Mangkhut in 2018 that green groups complained the government dumped 20,480 tonnes of tree waste into landfills without first seeing if it could be recycled.

Using government figures from the past 10 years, green group Friends of the Earth says less than 3 percent of the city's yard waste had been recycled -- around 2,000 tonnes out of 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes per year.

Friends of the Earth board governor Caroline Law says Y Park only accepts logs, while other garden waste, such as grass, leaves and branches must be sent to landfills. 

Vast majority of tree waste ended up in landfills

As a result, "there's no incentive for them to change that," she says.

In addition, Y Park's website claims it handled 30 tonnes in its first year of operation, and would gradually increase to 60 tonnes, but there is no update on how much it processes currently...

Sounds like there is more box ticking than earnestly trying to cut down the amount of waste going into landfills. Tree and garden waste can easily be composted and given to farmers to use as fertiliser to help grow crops. Or maybe that hadn't been considered before?

PIcture of the Day: Forest Bathing

Looking up at these green giants in the forest

Shinrin yoku is the Japanese term for forest bathing, or the process of relaxation. People turn to hobbies, sports, music and exercise.

I do this literally by going into Pacific Spirit Park and letting myself be a tiny person amongst the really tall Douglas Firs.

The trails in this forest host avid runners, hikers and dogs that are arguably the fittest in Vancouver, as they run around this massive playground.

Recently in a bid to appreciate the trees even further, I have begun putting my hand on the tree trunk and looking up to appreciate the tree.

One fun fact is that a large tree can provide a day's supply of oxygen for up to four people!