sundews are back!

Drosera rotundifolia unfurls its sticky tendrils to get ready for this year's mosquito season.  Does it look hungry?  It's only the diameter of a Canadian Loonie (one dollar coin) at the moment.  Eventually it will get to the size below:  (picture below from 2010)  Kids who visit the bog love to observe this carnivore in action.

Earthmaker's Art Project

The Camosun bog Restoration Group and Co-design Group will be engaging the Killarney Community to envision the ghost of a bog that once thrived in this neighbourhood. And artist Pat Beaton, organizer of Earthmakers, will then lead a community art project where participants create prints for a community mural. For details on this free event, click on the picture :

Laurence Brown did some preliminary research on Killarney bog and, by examining some fascinating archival maps,  this is what he discovered:

Most of our knowledge about the Killarney bog comes from surveys of the Fraser River lowlands carried out by the Royal Engineers between 1858 and 1880. These observations are consolidated in a map drawn up by North, Dunn and Teversham. The portion adjacent to the Killarney bog is shown below

The surveyors reported the central area as having organic soil. This would be either peat from sphagnum moss or partially decomposed sedges and rushes. The surface vegetation was reported as Labrador tea and cranberry. The surveyors called this a marsh but we would call it either a bog or a fen. The area round the bog was covered with grass. There is some possibility that this area was burnt by First Nations in order to improve the cranberry crop.

A contour map of the area adjacent to Killarney park is shown below (VanMap from City of Vancouver website)

The area forms a bowl with lower areas trending north from the east and west edges. These form two of the headwaters of Still Creek (see “Lost Streams of the Lower Fraser Valley” published by DFO). It seems likely that the original bog occupied the area roughly below the 94m contour.

I have combined the two maps below

The match is not particularly good but given that there has been 150 years between the two surveys and a lot has happened in this time it is not too surprising.

Interestingly, a quick survey of the area showed a construction site (see red dot in map above) with indications of some peat in the excavation

Laurence Brown

June 6, 2011

Sphagnum: "just add water"

The dried out sphagnum comes back to life when it is hydrated.  Can you see the colour difference?

before wetting

after pouring water on the area:  note the colour change.

Summer bog, dormant sphagnum

Sphagnum turns yellow during the summer drought but after a rain, the bog becomes green quickly

rainy work party

we heard frogs today. I think it sounded like tree frog

Robert on stump removal duty:  "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK..."

Work Party in a flooded Camosun bog

Camosun Bog Restoration Group In VItro

The Healing Bog: "Bog Restoration", redefined, by Garth Thomson

Garth Thomson, from Kelowna  sends greetings and thoughts of just what kind of restoration is going on when we stand ankle deep in peat, pulling deer fern and salal. Read on...


Hello fellow Crazy Boggers,

I've been watching from a distance via email updates for the last 7 years (yikes time flies!) and visited the bog briefly on my only visit since 2003 to Vancouver last year. I was active in the bog from 2000-2003 and spent almost all my weekends during that time weeding, digging, and planting along with you.  My frog still watches me from behind my desk and my wooden badge is still in my box of "special things". 

The bog attracted me because it was such an interesting and beautiful place so close to where I lived at the time. I had spent many many years doing work related to the natural environment and had trained in forestry at UBC in 1985. In 2000 I had just finished the course work related to a diploma in Restoration of Natural Systems at UVic. I had also recently been diagnosed with Crohn's disease and was going through a major struggle to keep myself functioning at all. On the surface, it just looked like a quiet place to get away from the struggles but I think at a deeper level there was much more going on that wasn't said. I've really only been able to adequately put words on it very recently.

Camosun Bog featured on "Our Sustainable Region" and Parks Newsletter

camosun bog featured in Our Sustainable Region TV
see year 2010 episode 46, regional parks, "Camosun Bog".  And I recommend Laurence getting into the documentary film biz 'cause he's a natural.
Bog Buddy program , the photos,  and the bog children's stories also got featured on the Parks Newsletter too.  Cool.