Apr
19
It’s difficult to move along from all the wonder that occurred here during the official opening of the Woodhaven Eco Art Project last Saturday, so I’ve made the executive decision not to. It’s sticking with me, so I’m sticking with it. I’ll offer a closer look at each contribution interspersed with news of the current evolution in the natural cycle of Woodhaven, one at a time as the days go by.
This wonderful piece of eco art is found in the cedar grove. The rocks were gathered from just outside the fence line, not from within the park but as close to it as possible. The students painted words on each and brought them to this felled cottonwood. The intention is for visitors to move the stones around just like fridge magnet poetry. I have seen a number of different combinations already and we’re only 3 days in. This arrangement begins with the words, “Surprised we weeded their habitat.” This phrasing lead me here, habitat that hasn’t been “weeded” or disturbed or changed in any way from the original.
This is the look of natural Okanagan. This is the dry hillside on the far north side of the park. Here the Saskatoon is bursting with white bloom, the yellow Balsam Root has flowered and the Ponderosa Pine stretches gnarly branches into the scene. This is how so much of this area appeared before development and irrigation. The Okanagan is really at the far end of the Sonoran Desert. This hillside boasts Prickly Pear cactus, Great Mullein and a strange lizard I’ve seen only a few times in my tenure here. This is fragile habitat and, like all of Woodhaven, precious.
Precious. That word came up in conversation the day after the opening. In fact it was a conversation with some of the UBCO faculty while finding ways to capture the richness that is Woodhaven and dare I say, “the magic” of the place. We enter this space thinking we’re going into a park, and exit as if the park has entered us. It was Michael V. Smith who used the term “a precious concentration” to describe all that’s here. From one distinct climatic zone to the next bio region there is flora and fauna as diverse as any, and even more so than can or more likely should be in one small area. It is after all only 22 acres within the fence line that distinguishes it and frames itself as “place.” What is inside the fence line was once outside the fence line. It is alarming to think the opposite could have also been realised.
Always grateful to Jim and Joan Burbridge.
Woodhaven is at 4711 Raymer Road. Please come and change up the Log Poem it is, after all, its purpose.
Comments
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I will definitely think twice before I do any dead tree removal on my property now! That log poem is strikingly beautiful, it changes as do the season, as does everything. I need one one of my own.