I recently saw an ad that caught my eye (in a restaurant bathroom of all places). The ad was for a non-profit called Evergreen.

Evergreen is a not-for-profit organization that makes cities more livable. By deepening the connection between people and nature, and empowering Canadians to take a hands-on approach to their urban environments, Evergreen is improving the health of our cities – now and for the future.

* Evergreen is a registered national charity founded by Executive Director Geoff Cape in 1991.
* Evergreen motivates people to create and sustain healthy, natural outdoor spaces and gives them the practical tools to be successful through three core programs:

1. Toyota Evergreen Learning Grounds brings teachers, students and community members together to transform traditionally barren asphalt and concrete school grounds into healthy, safe and creative outdoor learning environments.
2. Common Grounds works with community organizations, local volunteers, urban and parks planners and developers to create, restore, design, maintain and steward public green spaces.
3. Home Grounds educates people about how to garden naturally in their own yards.

There are many ways you can get involved with Evergreen. I looked at the “Upcoming Events” page a found there is a monthly planting and stewardship program at a park just a few minutes from my house:

“Activities will include: planting native plants, removing invasive species, mulching, pruning and participating in overall care for this urban ecosystem. The event will take place rain or shine. Refreshments, gloves, tools and training will be provided – bring your boots, sunscreen, work clothes…and your energy!”

I thought it would be great to bring my little guy out, have him run around and play in the dirt while I did my part with a little volunteer work, so I met up with the group last Saturday. There was a large group of people, old and young, happily pulling invasive species from the area. Everyone was super-friendly and there was nice big gazibo with lots of snacks and refreshments.

Things didn’t go as planned, as my son was being really shy, and would not let me put him down. I was basically useless trying to pull blackberry bush with one arm while balancing my 2 year-old in my other arm, so I left very shortly after arriving.

Overall, it looks like a great program, and a good way to help out the local community. I also think its a great way to help teach my son about nature (and even myself because my knowledge on local fauna/ gardening is nil) so we’ll be back to try again next month.

Be sure to check out the website and look for ways you can get involved in your own community!

Tags: Evergreen,Volunteer
Categories: Causes, Other Outdoor Stuff
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A while back I posted on something called geocaching, which is using your GPS device to go on a treasure hunt for hidden ‘caches’. It’s something I’d been interested in doing since that post. (You can go back and read that post to see what the basic concept of what geocaching is all about.)

Well, on the weekend I was able to get some hands-on experience in geocaching thanks to @AnthonyFloyd and @LeftCoastMama (who blog on Left Coast Floyds) and a great meet-up/ tweet-up they put on called Geocaching 101.

It was an event they took their own time to organize and introduce some ‘muggles’ like myself to geocaching (the word ‘muggle’, I learned, is used by cachers to describe people who don’t know anything about the sport). I learned a good deal so for those interested I thought I would pass some of my learning’s on:

We met up at the Pacific Spirit Park near UBC, and were given a crash course on what devices were good to use, and what kind of caches are typical.  The caches themselves range in size from tiny (think thumbnail) to large (think oil drum), but most are about the size of your average Ziploc container. The caches can be very creatively hidden, depending on how hard you want to make it for people to find them. One example was tying a micro-cache to a pinecone and placing the pinecone in a tree! Typically, however, they will be placed just off a trail in the woods in a hollow log, or otherwise hidden from a muggle’s view.

Inside the cache, if large enough, there will also be various items; usually toys that kids will like. The idea here is if you find something you want (or your kid wants) in a cache, you’re free to take it but you need to trade with something of equal or greater value. This adds additional fun to the hunt because you never know what random things you can find and your kids will be really excited to open the cache once you’ve found it. There is also usually a log book or paper where you can write your (geocaching) name to claim that you found the cache.

You may also find ‘travel bugs’ in some caches that have their own goals in life. For example, the travel bug will have a unique number, that it can then be tracked on the website www.geocaching.com, and if the note on the travel bug says it wishes to travel the world, you can watch as it jumps from country to country as different geocachers take the bug and place it somewhere on their travels, and log its new coordinates for the next person to come along and find.

Once you’ve placed a cache, you can upload the waypoint (geographic coordinates) to Geocaching.com for others to download and see if they can find it. You can provide ratings on how hard it is to find, and provide helpful hints as well. You can also see the virtual logbook and track how many people have (or maybe haven’t) been able to find your cache.

The one downside is that sometimes caches can get up and walk away.

There are different types of caches as well, and a good description of the different types is provided here.

I would recommend trying geocaching out some time. If you don’t have a GPS you can find a friend who does and borrow it, or you can even use your iPhone. I will be taking my son on our first expedition very soon. Apparently, there are over 4,000 active geocaches in the Vancouver area, so there is no shortage, even downtown!

For more information, Geocaching.com will be one of your best resources, and the BC Geocaching Association is also a great place to learn more and connect with people locally.

Also, a big thank you to Anthony Floyd for taking the time to teach me a bit about geocaching, and also for always answering my never ending ‘what type of GPS should I buy?’ questions, which I hounded him about on Twitter.

Tags: Geocaching
Categories: Other Outdoor Stuff
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This morning my son was cranky (teething), and I wanted to get him out of the house. I quickly consulted Jack Christie’s 52 Best Day Trips from Vancouver to find something near my house, a place where I haven’t been yet.

Destination: Maplewood Flats

Maplewood flats, protected by the Wild Bird Trust of BC, is located just east of the Ironworker’s Memorial in the Burrard Inlet, in North Vancouver. It is a birding, nature observation and walking area, with trails lining a beautiful and peaceful tidal marsh. As you progress through the park, you’ll notice almost everyone has binoculars or a serious camera in their hands to observe the birds.

With the current inversion (clouds at very low elevations, sunny skies above) it was foggy in the park. I made my way with my son to down the trail from the parking lot and we quickly reached the ocean. I made the mistake of showing Evan how to skip rocks on the water and we stayed in that spot for the next 20 minutes, while he, with freezing hands, continued to hurl rocks into the water.

After a while we were approached by some friendly, and somewhat curious otters:

Oblivious to their presence, my son continued to hurl rocks and scared them away. Then we moved on, picking a random picturesque trail to walk down. As we were walking, Evan was getting very cranky (again the teething) so I was carrying him while he chewed on a granola bar. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge freakin’ owl!

It was being pestered by a hawk (or some smaller bird) who’s turf he was stepping in. As I stood in amazement of the size of the owl, a lady came along and suggested it was a Barred Owl. She said she’d been coming to the park for 14 years and was surprised to see it, so I thought it must be a pretty rare sighting. I watched the owl for at least 10 minutes, as it changed its gaze between us and the pesky hawk. Evan then began to go into screaming/ I’m tired mode so we left, heading back to the car. On the way out I noticed this ‘sighting board’ and there were no owls on it for November. ‘So it must be pretty rare’ I said.

Curious now, I came home and resorted to the good ‘ol internet. First I found this bird checklist for Maplewood Flats, which listed 4 potential owls for the park, with a rating of ‘rare’ at most (1 – 10 sightings per year). I researched each of the owls, and none of them really looked like the one I saw.

Then I called on good ‘ol Twitter. Thanks to @mojaveband, @adventuregrrl, and @BigA888, we have it narrowed to a Barred Owl, or a Great Gray Owl.

I did some more quick Google searching and found this nice .pdf checklist with a listing of unusual sightings ever reported in the park, with dates, or how often sightings typically occur. Barred owls are listed as “casual” meaning they are not recorded every year. The Great Gray was even more rare, with a few sightings of one taking place from Jan 12 – 15 in 1996!

Given the white ‘moustache’ the owl has, I think it’s a Great Gray, but I’m not really sure. There is a Wild Bird Trust of BC info center at the park staffed by volunteers Thursdays and weekends from 10am – 2pm (don’t quote me on those hours) so I’ll be dropping by with my photo tomorrow to see what they say.

Nov 28 Update: I spoke with a volunteer of the Wild Bird Trust today at Maplewood, and it is indeed a Great Gray Owl! They were already aware it was around because some other people had reported it yesterday. Apparently, a few of them do live along the North Shore, but as far as they knew this was the fist sighting of one in the conservation area in 14 years. I was quite lucky to see it, as the lady told me some birders spend years before they can check a Great Gray off their list . The bird pestering it was a Cooper’s Hawk.

Also, if anyone is interested, on the 2nd Saturday of each month at 10am they do a free guided nature walk, each with a different theme, to introduce people to the conservation area and its wildlife (donations encouraged). I also learned it is not a ‘park’ as I referred to in my posting yesterday, because a park has paid staff. This is a ‘conservation area’ run by volunteers. Overall, a great place to check out if you’re into birding or nature photography.

You can download a map of Maplewood Flats here.

Directions: Follow Dollarton Highway, east of the Ironworkers Memorial, heading towards Deep Cove. Next to the Pacific Environmental Science Center (2645 Dollarton Highway) is the park entrance. You’ll see a blue sign with a pair of binoculars where you turn in off the highway.

Tags: Barred Owl,Great Gray Owl,Maplewood Flat
Categories: Other Outdoor Stuff
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Apparently the Natural Resources of Canada website, CanMatrix, is giving free access to all their print-ready digital topographic maps! I just learned about this very useful website thanks to the Wanderung newsletter:

A big thanks to Bob who forwarded us this helpful link to print ready topo maps. It takes a bit of tinkering with but the payoff is huge if  you need s reliable resource in the back-country! Add this to your  bookmarks! This from Bob:

“Not sure if you know about Natural Resources Canada which is a  department of the federal government and in charge of topographic maps. Apparently they want out of the publishing business and this is the
reason why their maps can now be readily downloaded from their web site.

Credit goes to Ian Whitehead for this discovery and his notes below.  I met Ian for the first time on June 27 when joining Chris Nott for the  backpack trip to the northern part of the Stein Valley.

CanMatrix – Print Ready was produced by scanning federal government  topographic maps at the scale of 1:50 000 and 1:250 000.

1) Go to http://outdoorvancouver.ca/F4k

2) Zoom in and pan to the area you want a map for and get the map  number, e.g. 92J10

3) Put that map number in the “Dataset name” box near the top of the  page, under the “Search Datasets by Name” heading. Click search.

4) Click submit on the next page (there should be just the one map on  there with a tick against it)

5) Choose either the tiff or the pdf format, then download.”

Tags: Topo Maps
Categories: Other Outdoor Stuff, Safety
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The Cold Water Classic Canada surfing competition is coming to Tofino Oct 25 – 31. This is the first professional surfing competition ever held in Canada.

“On the west coast of Vancouver Island in Tofino, freezing water and air temperatures, bears on the ground, whales in the water and even the chance of snow, awaits 144 professional surfers from around the world for the O’Neill Cold Water Classic Canada – the coldest event in professional surfing.”

How awesome is that!

You can read the official O’Neill press release here, or the article from MetroNews Vancouver below:

Canada’s first-ever professional surfing competition hits the waters off Vancouver Island next month.

The Cold Water Classic Canada, which runs Oct. 25 to 31, will bring more than 100 professional surfers to Tofino, as well as spectators and about 50 media.

“It solidifies our tagline of being the Surfing Capital of Canada,” said Lynda Kaye, a spokeswoman for Tourism Tofino.

“If (the water) is anything like I’m looking at right now — pro surfers are going to be happy,” said Kaye, whose Tofino office overlooks the ocean.

“(The surf) is not steamer-lane, Santa Cruz big, it’s not huge, rip-curl, Hawaii big, but there are surfers in our water every day of the year.”

Temperatures, she added, are consistent with other surfing places in the Pacific Northwest at about 10 C.

The contest is the first professional surfing competition sponsored by the Association of Surfing Professionals to be held in Canadian waters.

It is the fourth in a series of five events held in balmy locales like the coasts of Scotland and Tasmania, and it is part of a World Qualifying Series that carries a total purse of $145,000.

“We expect the town to be a hubbub of activity,” said Kaye, adding the Olympic torch relay visits Tofino on Nov. 1, the day after the competition ends.

“For a town that basically takes a break after the summer, we’re going to be on fire into the first part of fall.”

Tags: surfing,Tofino Classic
Categories: Events, Other Outdoor Stuff
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