A reminder of how soul-restoring a simple walk can be

Avalon Pond, Everett Crowley Park.

So I'm sitting at home, looking out the window at the birds flitting about at the numerous feeders in 
our yard, with two of our three parrots sitting on me...at the same time, I'm scrolling through the Facebook newsfeed on my iPhone.

I come upon a post in a group I belong to, "The Best Reasons for You to Walk in a Park," by Erin Acton. Now it turns out Wednesday was "National Take a Walk in a Park Day" (yes, there is such a day, I looked it up, there are plenty of websites dedicated to the topic.) I start reading the blog post, watching her video, and it start to resonate with me.

I'd been having a bad week, no, make that a bad week-and-a-half up to that point, one of those weeks where nothing seems to work or go one's way. It was starting to get depressing. But Erin's well-sourced suggestions about how a walk in nature, getting out in nature, can really help alleviate stress, struck a chord in me.

Not that I didn't know that already, but it's like I needed a nudge, a reminder, that taking a few hours out of the day to go for a walk, aside from the physical health benefits, offers larger benefits for the soul.

It's like I forgot what Henry David Thoreau wrote in his treatise, "Walking" on the matter:

“I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day, at least... sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements."

Thoreau and Emerson had it right.

Again, it's not like I was re-inventing the wheel; I just had to decided enough was enough, I needed to get out and get some fresh air, a bit of exercise (which I'd been neglecting the past several days for a variety of reasons), and commune with nature, albeit in an urban setting.

So I packed up my camera and tripod, and headed off to Everett Crowley Park, a 40-hectare park barely a five-minute drive from where I live, less than 500 metres from busy SE Marine Drive in Vancouver. I've been there before, but hadn't visited since 2008.

It has changed a little; there is an additional trail that has been cut, parallel to an existing one. One of the things I do remember is a lookout along the Vista Trail, which provides a view of the Fraser River, less than a kilometre to the south. When I was last there eight or nine years ago, that portion of the river was all trees and other greenery; it's now all buildings and development along the shoreline. A bit sad, since I don't necessarily agree that's "progress." So far, the walk wasn't really lifting my spirits as I'd hoped it might.

But, I persisted on and a few minutes later down the trail, the magic of nature started to re-emerge.

I heard a woodpecker hammering away on a tree nearby. I located it, high overhead. Then I heard a chirping in the brush near the trail, the unmistakable sound of a hummingbird. Never managed to spot it, though.

Then still higher overhead, a hawk glided by, returning in the opposite direction a few minutes later.

Further along the trail, off to the left about 30 metres away sat a hawk on a tree branch. Of course, the bird flew away before I could get set up to shoot some photos, but it was still magical.

Eventually, I made my way over to Avalon Pond at the northeast corner of the park. There were always ducks there - usually mallards - and I'd even seen a heron there, once, high up in a tree.

The mallards were there...and so were a pair of mated buffleheads.

A male bufflehead patrols the pond.

Buffleheads are really cool diving ducks. Smaller than mallards and very unique looking. Plus, it's just a cool word to say - "bufflehead."

 Try it. Say it out loud a few times. It almost sounds like the kind of insulting name Bugs Bunny would call Daffy Duck in the old Loony Tunes cartoons.

But it's not - it's the common name for Bucephala albeola. A friend of mine calls them "saddle shoe ducks," which gives you an idea of what they look like, if you didn't already know.

Anyway, I tried shooting some photos and video from a trail that ran alongside the pond, then found a spot at one end where I could sit down a log, set up my tripod in an easy-access position and took the better part of an hour watching them swim and dive back and forth among the mallards. I even got a few good shots.

The mallards always seem friendly at Avalon.

Letting go, breathing - really breathing - I could feel a sense of peace and perspective start to take root in my being. I noticed some of the songbirds flitting about in the bushes around me. I spotted several hummingbirds and out of the corner of my eye a larger bird dodging about in the hardwoods 50 yards away (maybe a pileated woodpecker?)

That two hours I spent did wonders for me - other responsibilities kept me from a four-hour sojourn as Dr. Thoreau prescribed - got me back on the rail properly, which I was in danger of falling off (and with the fall, could a potential train-wreck be far off?)

Walking back to my car, doing some shopping for groceries, talking with people I met - it all just seemed better, following my walk.

While I enjoy watching the visitors to the birdfeeders in our yard immensely, sometimes a walk rewards one with different kinds of benefits. I resolved not to let it get to this point again, to take time to re-connect with nature via a walk in the woods, not just from my living room window.

And next time, I don't think I'll wait another eight years to go back to that little park that can offer such a balm for my soul.

Trail map for Everett Crowley Park.

When someone yells 'Duck!' at Oak Hammock, you don't hunker down

Canoes at Oak Hammock, waiting to be paddled.

Several years ago,  I drove across Canada from B.C., with the Divine Ms. K, literally “passing through” Manitoba on our way to Ontario. We only stopped overnight outside Winnipeg because a torrential downpour made it unsafe to drive.

 

The next day we were up early and gone quickly, rushing to get to Algonquin Park and experience nature during a four-day canoe trip.

While we did enjoy some wonderful encounters there, we had no idea we had been so close to another natural gem: Oak Hammock Marsh.

Having paddled in Algonquin several times, as well as several B.C. locales - including the Queen Charlotte Islands and the world-renowned Bowron Lakes - I’ve had plenty of memorable experiences in nature, seeing songbirds, raptors, and waterfowl in B.C.’s interior, on its islands, and up and down its coast.

Eventually, I did get a chance to visit Oak Hammock - and I was amazed at the variety and diversity of bird life there.

Of course, it helped that I was paddling; there’s no better way to see birds – especially wetland species – than from a canoe.

 

Coot family.

We set out early in the morning to escape the early July heat and give ourselves the best opportunity to see some of the 296 different bird species recorded here.

We were not disappointed. Just minutes into our journey, we spotted an American coot with babies. 

For the next two hours, we paddled through a couple of different wetland cells, spying gulls, terns, blackbirds, and several other species. 

But the highlight came as we paddled quietly toward a small island covered with American white pelicans.

When we came too close for their comfort, it was as if someone pressed a button - they took off en masse, a white cloud of flapping feathers rising up into the sky.

In addition to its wonderful bird-watching opportunities, the area offers something else many destinations I’ve visited do not: an incredibly entertaining and informative interpretive centre. 

With all of its hands-on, youth-friendly exhibits, a family could easily spend an entire day inside, saving the outdoor experiences for another day.

White pelicans hanging out on a small island.

The centre is not only a great spot for birding and environmental education; it acts as the hub for all Ducks Unlimited Canada operations, with its head offices located there.

Originally part of a marsh called St. Andrew’s Bog that covered roughly 47,000 hectares, the end of the 19^th century saw the wetland area reduced to 60 hectares, most of it drained for agriculture.

Ducks Unlimited Canada became interested in restoring part of the wetland habitat as early as the 1930s, but it was not until 1973 that the area was designated as Oak Hammock Marsh Wildlife Management Area. In creating a wetland area of roughly 3600 hectares, DUC and Manitoba Conservation joined forces to build 22 kilometres of earth dikes to help resort the area.

Twenty years later the interpretive centre opened, a year after construction of the building that also houses the DUC national headquarters was completed.

Today, the building and the wetlands stand side-by-side, proud symbols of wetland conservation at its best.

And it’s also a great place to stop and visit – not just drive by on a trip heading east or west.

(A slightly different version of this story appeared in a 2007 issue of Conservator magazine.)

Fall migration at Oak Hammock.

Like walking in the rain, writing can require overcoming intertia

Thoreau by the fire: why would I want to leave?

I stare out the window as the autumn rain pours down, washing yesterday's slate clean.

I am thankful for the needed rain.

However, the deluge is enough to discourage all but the most dedicated walker.

I love the rain; its sound always seems to comfort me. 

Further comfort arises from the crackling fireplace. I am in a cozy cocoon, from which I do not want to stir. 

Nevertheless, as I sit reading, like a larva whose time has come to metamorphose into a butterfly, I struggle against the boundaries of my unseen prison, unconsciously at first, then more attentively

I am reading Thoreau's "The Maine Woods," and more than once he tells of trekking in the rain. Finally I put the book down, my mind made up.

Why leave this...

...for this?

Rain or no rain, I will walk.

Motivating myself to walk in the rain is much like motivating myself to write. There is an inertia that chains me to my comfortable chair, preventing me from acting on my conscious thoughts. Yet, in either case, once I shed those chains, there is little that brings me greater pleasure.

As I pull out my rain pancho, I think this trek through the torrents will transcend a stroll in the sunshine. There will be fewer people in the park where I walk, so I may see more wildlife.

I am not disappointed. As the rain slackens, the wildlife stirs from its mid-day meditations. It seems I have the entire park to myself. I am Adam, alone in the world with no one but the animals for company. I spy a pair of deer, then a pair of ducks. Two geese wing their way overhead. I hear, then see, a downy woodpecker going about his business on a tree trunk.

Nature's magic is not limited to chance wildlife encounters. Each time I inhale, my senses revel in the fresh, clean scent of rain-covered forest.

Pecking away, despite the rain.

Half an hour into my jaunt, the rain ceases and I find myself missing the very element that kept me chair-bound earlier. The sun wakens from his mid-day slumber. 

As he wipes the vanishing clouds of sleep from his face, I awake also, to the fact others are walking the park's pathways. 

With that realization, twinges of regret begin to coalesce inside my rain-hungry soul. After hiding inside from it for much of the day, I now want the rain to return, and with it the solitude and serenity of a wet, wild world.

 

But I realize that for today, the winds of Aeolus have banished the rainclouds of Zeus from the skies.

I do not dwell on this realization for too long, for I know the rains will return. And that happy knowledge stays with me, adding a spring to my step as I wend my way home, ready to shatter those other chains, ready to sit down and write.

As I conquered the rain that kept me inside, so have I conquered the inertia that kept me from writing.

Hike, Bike and Paddle - Pittsburgh style

When you coin the phrase, "outdoor adventure," images of wilderness waterways, primeval forests and rare wildlife species often spring to mind.

However, you don't always have to go out of the city to enjoy outdoor activities. That's certainly true in Pittsburgh, where I spent an afternoon hiking, biking and paddling, all in an urban environment, a few days ago.

We began our "hike " - it was about a 1.5 km jaunt from the Wyndham Grand Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh to the Golden Triangle Bike Rental shop where our adventure would begin in earnest. Brenda Miller of Visit Pittsburgh led a group of 15 of us out-of-towners on our "warm-up walk," with Mike Carroll of Bike Pittsburgh accompanying us on his bike, as he would be the leader of the cycling portion of our pedal-paddle outing.

The bikes are all lined up and ready to ride.

Once there, we fitted ourselves out with helmets, saddled up and off we went...

To lunch.

A short pedal down to the Smithfield Street Bridge - the first of many bridges we could cross over (and under) that day - brought us across the Monongahela River to the Buca Di Beppo Italian Restaurant. A quick feed of pasta, salad, chicken and bread tucked into our bellies, we mounted up and headed out once more.

Pittsburgh is a pretty cycle-friendly city, although it has not always been that way. These days, though, cyclists have unlimited access to the T-trains and buses.

"We've been working on making that a reality for the past several years, and it's just the last two years the transit system has provided unlimited access," says Carroll, the events co-ordinator for the bicycle advocacy group.

Our trusty two-wheeled steeds got us to the base for Venture Outdoors, the outfit that would guide us along the kayaking portion of our journey.

Once we donned our life jackets and our safety talk and instruction were completed, we headed for our kayaks to test the waters of the Allegheny River.

The weather had turned quite nice for our paddle. Earlier this morning, thundershowers threatened, and it was overcast when we hopped on our bikes, but since then the sun had started to shine.

As we got into the rhythm of paddling upstream, I lost track of time, as I often do when canoeing or kayaking. It did have a unique feel for me, as I'd never paddled in an urban environment like a city in my 50 years of paddling. But as I'm fond of saying, "A bad day paddling beats a good day doing anything else." And it doesn't really matter whether it's in a city, on a rural pond, or a wilderness river.

We made several stops along the way for guide Nik Brown to provide some interpretive talks about the history and highlights of the area. At one point, we were sitting under the Roberto Clemente Bridge; we also paddled underneath the Andy Warhol Bridge.

Guide Stacia Fe Gillen keeps on eye on the paddlers.

Further along, I saw a fish jump. That's right - a fish. In an urban river. Now, I know you can fly-fish for trout in Calgary's Bow River, right in the city - but Pittsburgh is much more developed with a lot less green space than the southern Alberta city.

Brown told us there are several different species of fish you can find in the city's rivers.

"I've caught rock bass, striped bass and even smallmouth bass," he told us. "It used to be, all you'd catch was catfish, but that's changing as we've cleaned up the river."

The biggest continuing threat to the rivers is the city's storm sewer system. Because of the vast amount of pavement in the city, the water runs down, often unchecked, into the rivers.

That's still a far cry from what it used to be like before efforts were made to improve the city's quality of air and water.

You can even eat some of the fish caught in the river. But like a good boater, just don't go overboard.

"There is a guide you have to check in terms of how many of a particular species of fish you can eat, to be safe from toxicity," Brown says.

All too soon, it's time to turn around and paddle back to the take-out, where another bike ride back to Golden Triangle awaits us.

As we near the dock, the same geese who were there when we left are still swimming around. A pair of mallards have joined them in the water, and as they float by, they quack at me. They seem to say, "We think the river's okay, so don't worry about us."

Nature survives. Even in the city.


Interested in learning how to catch catfish in Pittsburgh's rivers?
This video should help.