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By Maxis Dixon
April comes like a splash of water to many of us stupefied by the
long nights and dull days of winter. And with the longer stretches
of daylight comes a restless energy. We want to get busy. We want
to get our hands dirty. We want to get outside.
Appropriately, April is also known as Earth Month, which grew out of the celebration of April 22 as Earth Day. In April 1970, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and organizer Dennis Haye engaged millions of Americans and Canadians in thousands of ‘teach ins’ which succeeded in putting environmental protection on the public agenda.
Now, Earth Day has grown into a global phenomenon based on local acts of stewardship and environmental awareness. While Earth Day serves as a valuable call to action, the truer calling is to sustain our commitment and become an everyday earth steward. With stewardship a thousand daily acts may each go unnoticed but together they bring about transformation.
A little known ‘urban wilderness’ called Everett Crowley Park is a model for transformation. Its not-so-secret past can be guessed at when you glimpse discrete methane vents here and there along its forested paths. Between 1944 and 1966 it was the City Landfill or the Kerr Road Dump. In just 22 years, so much waste was deposited in the central ravine that the fill was up to 49 metres deep in places. It was not until after 20 years of natural reclamation and clean-up at the site that the local residents convinced the city of Vancouver to declare it a park in 1987.
For Manfred Hagen Earth Day is just another day when it comes to caring for where he lives. Manfred and his wife reside near Everett Crowley Park. His daily walks reveal Manfred’s deep care for this park: a glimpse of invasive purple loosestrife in Avalon Pond becomes reason enough to wade in and uproot it; a discovery of tortoiseshell butterfly eggs provides an excuse to raise and release hundreds of butterflies in the park; a glimpse of an owl or of nearby urban beavers provides the opportunity to share with an unsuspecting passerby.
Everett Crowley Park seems an ideal home for the annual Earth Day Vancouver Celebration. Evergreen, the Vancouver Park Board together with Manfred Hagen and the rest of the Everett Crowley Park Committee will host the free, public celebration Saturday, April 26 from 11am until 3 pm. Each year, hundreds of people attend making it the largest outdoor Earth Day event in BC and one of the largest in Canada.
Evergreen’s Blaire Chisholm explains the Earth Day event’s growing
popularity, "we’re seeing kids coming back for their third year, measuring
themselves against the trees they planted a few years ago. Even the
littlest kids are here turning this old dump into a positive environmental
legacy." Starbucks employees will be on hand offering free organic
coffee and free coffee ground compost to take home. VanCity will host
the free children’s events, and Small Potatoes Urban Delivery will
be back providing free organic snacks. For more information visit
www.evergreen.ca.
Another way to make every day an Earth Day and get your hands dirty
is to garden. Even without owning any land, you can be inspired by
the blooms at the corner of 4th and Alma and try your hand at guerrilla
gardening. Or help out your neighbours by maintaining a traffic circle
near you. If you want a plot to call your own, Strathcona Community
Gardens is only one of 53 shared gardens in the GVRD and Victoria.
To find one near you, visit City Farmer’s website at www.cityfarmer.org.
Our homes all provide some form of landscape, even if it is only a
planter on a balcony. Naturescape BC (www.hctf.ca/nature.htm)
has excellent resources for creating native habitat outside your back
door. Or email Evergreen at infobc@evergreen.ca
and they will send you a free Home Grounds booklet with tips on how
to create native plant habitat at home.
Throughout BC there are hundreds of opportunities to get started as
an everyday earth steward. A great place to start is the Natural History
Society of BC and the Young Naturalists. Their website www.naturalhistory.bc.ca/YNC
is filled with upcoming activities and chapter contacts for the whole
province. As well, Earth Day Canada has great sites for adults and
kids. Check out www.earthday.ca
and www.ecokids.ca.
As Earth Day coordinator for Van-couver, Evergreen hosts free planting and stewardship activities throughout the Lower Mainland. April 4 is a native plant rescue in North Vancouver and April 5 is a planting in Mosquito Creek. Surrey plantings are April 13 and May 11 and there is a salmon release in Delta’s Watershed Park April 27. For details on any of these Evergreen events or to become an everyday earth steward, call Alyssa at (604) 689-0766.
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