Fall 2018

Join us for a celebration of

World Rivers Day

with events that honour our city’s rich heritage of waterways.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2018 11 AM - 2:30 PM

BOWEN PARK LOWER PICNIC SHELTER SALMON BBQ HOSTED BY NALT

BBQ wild BC salmon filet on a bun with all the fixings $10 • Service starts at 12 noon

1:30 pm GUIDED STREAM WALK

LIVE MUSIC BY LOCAL BANDS 11 am • The Downward Dawgs

12:15 pm • Laura Kelsey 1:30 pm • Dave Hart

TREE VOUCHERS ON SALE FOR $20 (200 trees available for Nanaimo residents only; limit 2 per property; for trees up to $75 in value)

Also ENTER TO WIN! One of two large re-purposed rain barrel totes.

Nanaimo River Watershed & Water Treatment Plant Tour:

9:30 am-4 pm on SAT, SEP 22 (#2701) meet at Bowen Park (Wall St)

Taste of River Kayaking 9:30 am-12:30 pm on SAT, SEP 22 (#4938)

meet at Nanaimo River Rest Area

Taste of River Stand Up Paddling 1-4 pm on SAT, SEP 22 (#4937) meet at

Nanaimo River Rest Area (195 Island Hwy)

Morden Colliery Park Historical Tour

9:30 -11 am on SUN, SEP 23 (#4921) meet at Morden Colliery Park

Nanaimo River Estuary Walk 9:30-11 am SUN, SEP 23 (#4946) meet at

end of Raines Rd in Cedar by 9:20 am

Nanaimo Estu-ary Float By Raft

9:30-11:30 am (#2702) or 1-3 pm (#2703) on SUN, SEP 23 meet at

Living Forest entrance

Rivers Day tours hosted by Nanaimo River

Watershed Roundtable See the Fall 2018 Activity Guide for details. Pre-registration is mandatory. Some fees apply.

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR PARKS?

And in a blink of an eye, summer has come and gone and the fall season is upon us...but what a summer we had! This year we offered our free summer playground programs at five of our local parks:

...and three successful Family Fun Nights, thanks to our community partners—Nanaimo Foodshare, Harewood Neighbourhood Association, Nanaimo Sunrisers Kiwanis Club, Rotary Club of Nanaimo North, Country Grocer and the many com-munity groups and musical entertainers who

were involved in participating in our Family Fun Nights this summer.

We also enjoyed nine weeks of evening and afternoon concerts in two of our

favorite locations—Bowen Park Amphitheater and Maffeo Sutton Park. I hope you were able to join us for a few of these events this summer.

If you would like to see one of our free summer playground programs in your neighbourhood or have suggestions for musical entertainers you would like to see in 2019, please contact us at parksandrecreation@nanaimo.ca

Beaufort Park Food Forest A Food Forest is intended to mimic a natural forest ecosystem with plants chosen and located around trees in a away that helps support and sustain them. Many of the plants chosen in this park act as pollinator attractors, nu-trient accumulators and soil stabi-lizers. We are excited to see this project come together—Please come visit, or if you are interested in helping out contact us at:

parksandrecreation@nanaimo.ca

Groveland Park Carmanah Park

Country Hills Park Coal Tyee School

Mansfield Park Harewood Centennial Park

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR STREAMS?

Departure Creek Realignment and Enhancement Project Departure Creek is a second order tributary that originates in the Nanaimo Golf course and runs 3km before reaching Departure Bay. This summer, the City, working with several community groups, completed a project to im-prove fish habitat in the lower reaches of Departure Creek.

PURPOSE OF PROJECT... to address bank erosion issues in Woodstream Park . to create a side channel that could act as a winter refuge for salmonids and other fish during high water. to create more instream habitat by moving the creek away from an existing commercial building off Departure Bay Road

Thank you to our Community Volunteers and Sponsors... Bill’s Place Departure Bay Neighbourhood Association

Milner Group Island Timberlands Island Flyfishers

Volunteers Hard At Work.. A huge thank you to all the volunteers who spent hours working in Woodstream Park and Departure Creek, filling and moving 400 geo-bags to help with bank stabilization in the park. This along with the anchoring of large woody structures will help create pools and riffles along the creek and improve the spawning hab-itat for local fish moving up the creek. Depar-

ture Creek also now has a new side channel to give the fish ref-uge during high water.

With the wet season upon us—revegetation will begin in this park along with other greenspaces and parks in the city.

If you are interested in helping out with these or other projects, please connect with us at parksandrecreation@nanaimo.ca

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Raingardens and Retention ponds As the wet season arrives, you might start noticing that there are an increasing number of rain gardens and retention ponds that capture storm water around town. In order to achieve our sustainability goals, the City of Nanaimo is working with developers to design and establish greenspaces that capture storm water, help to slow it down and fil-ter it before it reaches our local streams and rivers. Some examples around town:

Linley Point Gyro Park ponds Kinette Evergreen Park Pond

Bioswales in Hawthorne Estates Pond in Hawthorne Park

Bioswales along Boxwood Drive Raingarden at Selby and Fitzwilliam St

Interesting Facts about Stormwater Stormwater begins as precipitation & becomes surface runoff as it

travels over hard surfaces (pavement, patios, roofs). Runoff may become polluted with sediments, automotive fluids,

litter, or pet waste as it runs along these surfaces. Surface runoff flows into storm drains that eventually flow into

watercourses, which can negatively impact fish habitat. Engineers and landscape architects now design retention ponds,

rain gardens, and green roofs to help collect rainwater that flows off hard surfaces.

These storm retention features help reduce the impact of these stormwater flows on stream channels and prevent rainstorm run-off from carrying pollutants into streams and lakes.

Streamkeeper Workshop— Building a Culture of Stewardship Join well-known, energetic and extremely knowledgeable Biologist Dave Clough for this Fall Streamkeeper Workshop, Nov. 3rd and 4th, focusing on the Cat Stream. Thanks to NALT and their desire to build a culture of stewardship in Nanaimo, it’s FREE!! The only cost is $20 for the resource handbook.

Registrants will learn about the structures and indicators of a healthy stream or river, how to measure and record the health of creeks, and various restoration and enhancement activities that can improve fish habitat. A bonus of this indoor/outdoor workshop is finding and identifying the different kinds of bugs that live in streams, and what their presence reveals about water quality. For more info or to regis-

ter, please call (space is limited) 250-714-1990 or email volunteer@nalt.bc.ca.

The Island Water Flyfishers are one of our environmental stewardship groups seen here monitoring water quality of the Millstone River in Barsby Park. They check seven sights on four creeks and one river between August and November (5 sampling days during “dry season” and 5 again during “wet season”), testing for percentage of dissolved oxygen, water temperature, specific conductivity and turbidity.