IN THIS SHORT ISSUE:
VIMFF SHOW IN RETROSPECT
REMINDER: SWI AGM on APRIL 12th at 7:00 pm
SUMMER JOBS ANNOUNCEMENT
SPP IN MARCH
VIMFF SHOW IN RETROSPECT
SWI is happy to report that our second Film Festival fundraiser was a great success. The VIMFF films were excellent, offering a broad range of topics, from environmental issues to extreme sports, and we received lots of positive comments after the show. The films took us across the globe from the Arctic (loss of sea-ice affecting polar bear habitat) and Baffin Island (an extreme ski and kayak vacation) …
to South Africa (a mega freefall site in the Cape Mountains), from the Cascades (the trash-collecting Silent Steward of Crystal Mountain) to the Karakoram (a unique paragliding approach to an inaccessible climbing target, the Gulmit Tower), with a few places in between, including the mountain-bike trails on Vancouver’s North Shore. We thank all who joined us for the event, our volunteers and especially the generous donors of our door-prizes. Your support is greatly appreciated.
REMINDER: SWI AGM on APRIL 12th at 7:00 pm
Repeating our notice from last month’s newsletter, this is a reminder that we will hold our 2023 AGM as an electronic meeting again this year (we hope for the last time). We cordially invite all our supporters to attend; there is no cost, but please pre-register using the following link:
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7358164239408314205
Strathcona Wilderness Institute is a not-for-profit organization whose essential role is, in partnership with BC Parks, to serve as an interface between the Strathcona Wilderness and the general public. We are a non-membership society, and so we invite members of the public with an interest in Strathcona Provincial Park to attend our AGM, since its purpose is to present our Annual Report to the public, as well as to elect the Board of Directors for the coming year.
With our mission to inspire awareness, appreciation and stewardship of the Natural World through research, education and participation, we schedule interpretive walks, hikes and workshops, and oversee research projects in the Park, including the SWI Data Collection Project on iNaturalist. We also provide the Public with information about Strathcona Provincial Park each summer at our two “huts”, at the Paradise Meadows Trailhead and at Buttle Lake. All our activities are carried out by VOLUNTEERS and SUMMER STUDENTS (funded through the Canada Summer Jobs program).
So we invite former and potential volunteers to attend the AGM and learn more about SWI’s work, accomplishments and plans for the upcoming year. We always need volunteers to staff our visitor centres and participate in our educational programs, thus ensuring the continuation of what we have achieved in the past. Please put your names forward! And anyone who loves Strathcona Park and would like to contribute a little of their time to the organization of SWI’s many activities should consider becoming a director. Nominations can be made at the meeting from the virtual “floor”.
For more information about the AGM please contact us at: strathconawilderness@gmail.com
The Meeting’s Agenda & Minutes of the 2022 AGM are available on our Events page.
SUMMER JOBS ANNOUNCEMENT
Please note that we are still accepting applications for out Canada Summer Job positions, as listed on the Website:
The CSJ awards notice should be released very soon. In the meantime, we have been interviewing potential candidates, and encourage students looking for a summer job, who enjoy being in the Park and meeting people, to apply for our Visitor Counsellor positions (one at Paradise Meadows, one at Buttle). And for those with some experience in biological sciences who are familiar with the Park, we are looking for Naturalist Interpreters to lead our guided walks and hikes, as well as to assist in our ongoing collection of floral and faunal observations for our biodiversity inventories through the iNaturalist SWI DATA COLLECTION PROJECT. For full job descriptions see the linked documents on our website.
Work With Us
STRATHCONA PARK IN MARCH
It is still white up on the Plateau, with the snowpack at the 1100 m level hovering around the 2m mark, as thawing alternates with freezing and more precipitation. The Centre has clearly lost some of its snow cover, but only the tops of the park signs are visible. As usual by this time of year there are fairly well-worn trenches following the summer hiking trails, and before the most recent downturn in temperatures, an early start was advisable to hike on firmly compacted snow before the afternoon thaw. Fortunately, the lakes are still well frozen, so a trip to Croteau Lake is shorter than in summer, with direct routes across Battleship and Lady Lakes.
Over in the Buttle area, precipitation in early March brought the snow line back down the slopes, almost to the level of Highway 28 and the edge of the lake, although not for long. Trumpeter swans were still on the lake at Driftwood Bay on March 10 (tiny white dots to the left of centre, but gone by the end of the month.
The photo of Kings Peak (at the top of the newsletter) taken from the Highway on March 28th shows the Alpine still in its gleaming winter mantle.
On a half day hike part way up the Elk River trail there was still crusty snow in increasingly large patches on the lower lying sections before Volcano Creek.
We had hoped that by late March there might be a few early spring blooms in sheltered corners (such as gold thread and wild ginger) and the wealth of snowbank fungi that we have seen in previous years – but no luck. Perhaps n a couple of weeks! There was lots of evidence of squirrels having feasted on their winter stores – large piles of dissected cones strewn on the path and log beside its cache.
And on the Buttle Narrows bridge, colourful crossbills, plus the odd siskin, were greedily picking up the seeds that were flowing everywhere in the air just released from their fir cones – obviously for the birds picking from the road requires less effort than prying open cones with their specialized beaks.
The level of the Elk River is very low – not unusual for this time of year, before the spring melt–
and the delta section where it flows into Upper Campbell Lake looks like the boreal barrens, as seen in the photo below, looking west (with Big Den on the right and Puzzle Mt in the far left of Centre). BC Hydro is concerned about the very low levels of the lakes. Without substantial precipitation last November and December, it seems that even with a moderate snowpack that does not melt too fast the reservoirs will not be recharged before summer.
CANADA JAYS ARE NESTING ALREADY - SPRING IS ON ITS WAY
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