Wayfinding: New Paths

Western Street to Northern, Station to Terminal In the long ago, the canoes would have threaded their way through the Separated Points and glided across the relatively warm, shallow and extremely rich waters of the calm estuary here. Flocks of water fowl lingered at the edges, and one could look down through glass waters into…

Wayfinding: An Ancient Path

Main St. In the long ago, this place was a thin arm of land that reached out and almost grasped the hand of the arm on the other side of the water; together, they almost formed a land bridge across the waters of the estuary. These arms of land seemed, to the settlers, to be…

Wayfinding: Nature Hiding in Plain Sight

East First Avenue, from Thornton St to Main St We descend into what was surely the water of the estuary, in the long ago, with the tule and cattail, mud banks and sand bars — perhaps there were also cottonwood trees here then, as there are now. There are still empty lots here, but not…

Wayfinding: Wildflower Meadow @ ECUAD

The face of this land has been changed many times since the last ice age (when it was under water), and since Europeans and others began to displace the First Nations in the 19th Century. Was this spot lower than it is now, at the shoreline of the estuary? did it get more fill than…

Wayfinding: View of the Sisters/ St.George Rainway

Behind St.Francis Xavier church, across from 440 East 5th Ave Vancouver If the day is clear, you’ll be able to look out from this spot and see the North Shore Mountains. Near the western side are two prominent knobs of rock that have been named “The Lions” on many maps made by the newcomers in…

Wayfinding: Hurt Birch

The birch trees at the corner of Fraser and E5th Ave have had a hard time. To me, birch trees never seem completely at home in this place, as I imagine they do from the photos I’ve seen of the birch forests, and the descriptions of the huge, flawless sheets of bark that were once…

Wayfinding: Cedar

801 E 6th Ave Outside this apartment building are cedar trees; this land was probably covered with thickly buttressed old growth cedars and firs, home to species like flying squirrels (now extinct), and porcupines, I’ve read. The universe of gifts given by cedar trees is catalogued in Hilary Stewart’s book, Cedar: Tree of Life to…

Wayfinding: China Creek Ravine/MOP @ 6th & St.Catherines

This is the first stop of the Walking, Weaving and Wayfinding: The False Creek Fibreshed tour from Means of Production Garden to Trillium North Park. (above left: False Creek (near Clark Drive?) circa 1904, Archives, found on https://www.straight.com/news/698461/celia-brauer-revitalizing-false-creek-flats-more-paved-over-human-development-or-place above right: slough near Garry Point Park, Steveston, in 2018. Photo credit Rebecca Graham At the northern…

Multicultural Fair

“Its actually making me a little teary. It makes the kids see what’s good about their neighbourhood, because so often they’re told that it’s not.” This is what one of the teachers said as she stood before the table and looked at the map on the wall behind me, with the leaves that the kids…