the Urban Treefrog blog

Vancouver’s secret urban forest

Filed Under: city living, history, life, urban critters, vancouver on October 12, 2009

What a wonderful way to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving.

Yesterday, a number of families in my neighbourhood organized a nature walk through our backyard urban forest – a quiet green space that hardly anyone in the city of Vancouver knows of. Well, because you folks read it here, you now know of it , a gem located not in the suburb, but here in the middle of a busy metropolitan city, Vancouver.

Our community’s sincere thanks to the Neighbourhood Small Grants Program (NSGP) who helped support us in undertaking this fun effort.

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Over a decade ago, almost a hundred residents in this Vancouver neighbourhood, questioned City Hall on their plans to clear a last remaining urban forest. The City’s original plans were to build a bunch of condos, then later modified their plans into “upgrade a golf course”.

The neighbours quickly organized themselves, and received support from many other neighbourhood and community organizations across the City. We signed up many thousands of citizens onto a petition to encourage our city officials to re-evaluate and reconsider what they were doing.  We wanted the city to appreciate an original part of old Vancouver, that is truly unique.  The media spotlight kept collars at the City rather warm for quite awhile.

As part of the effort to challenge the City’s plans, we tapped into a newish technology at the time, the “computer” and it’s ability to communicate widely to select audiences. We used various Bulletin Board services – the BBS.

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Yesterday– a new generation of young people along with some of the original folks who fought and saved our forest, enjoyed a leisurely walk through one of Vancouver’s last urban forests, which until the early 1970s, still had deer roaming through it.

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Nurse tree stump

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New and old timer families shared stories of the history and efforts to preserve this secret place in our busy city.

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a majestic "big leaf" Maple, towering almost 75 feet tall

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Yesterday, was a beautiful sunny thanksgiving day for our walk… we saw a raptor bird, mole hills, a coyote, song birds, nurse tree stumps from Vancouver’s first growth forest, colourful toadstools, many beneficial species of trees (that offer medicinal value to people), and best of all, we learned of recent beaver activity. Yes, a real live busy beaver in an old inner city neighbourhood!

Here’s a photo taken of this little guy taken earlier this summer:

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a Beaver visits a pond in the inner city of Vancouver... a first in decades?

Beaver photographed by John Green (Aug 2009)

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Yes, our battle to save this urban forest with the city Park Board 15 years ago was worth it.

Here’s a bit on the history of our effort:
http://www.urbantreefrog.com/?p=1196

A new generation gets to enjoy real nature. Unfortunately, the pheasants, black bears and deer are no longer around.

All this in our own backyard… in the middle of our City…

We’re now compiling a natural history guide of our forest and neighbourhood, describing the history, and much of the plants and animals who share our space. We’re currently at 65 pages, and counting!

So, we have much to be thankful for this weekend.

In particular, to all of our current and former neighbours who fought hard to keep our urban forest… especially to those individuals who are no longer with us, but left behind a magnificent legacy for a new generation to enjoy.

Thank You.

One of many small creeks running through the forest.
Sticklebacks and cutthroat trout still dart about in these hidden waterways.