The Reds, Greens and Golds of Autumn

I've been enjoying my fall meanderings around Victoria. Here are a few images.

The first one is of the "Story Pole" at Beacon Hill Park. Carved in 1956 by a renowned Kwakiutl carver Mungo Martin, the pole has now been in the park for over sixty years! It has been repainted and repaired several times since then, the most recent one being in 2011.

According to the City of Victoria website, the average life of a story pole is 50 years. Traditionally they would be allowed to decay, and to return to the earth, where the stories would reside and be shared into the future. The City indicates on its website that the pole may only stand for another decade.

Detail from Story Pole, Beacon Hill Park.  

Art provided another bright scene in my fall wanderings. The mural below has been newly installed at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Called "How We Fit Together", it was created by a group of young women from Cedar Hill Middle School who have self-named their group "Melanin Magic", as an acknowledgement of their racial affinity with persons of colour. The artists' statement on the wall speaks to the symbolism of the black silhouettes of the young artists against a backdrop of colour, implying their challenges to overcome anonymity in our still-racially slanted society.

"How We Fit Together" , a new mural at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

The next piece of art I feature is not colourful; nonetheless it is intriguing and I loved the bright green mossy rock on which it stands, in front of the Art Gallery. Titled "Figures in Architecture", it was commissioned in 1959 as a result of winning a competition. The artist is John Ritchel, who died in 2008 at the age of 95. There is very limited information about him. A brief reference on the Art Gallery website mentions that he was a "shy and private person, who shunned publicity, and thus his work has not received the exposure it is due".

Art outside Art Gallery of  Greater Victoria, titled "Figures in Architecture", a winning sculpture from a competition held in 1959.

Moving from art to nature - but keeping the theme of grey rock and moss, I found some striking landscapes on a foggy day in the Park. 

Beacon Hill Park on a misty day

Another image from the park on the same misty day

One final misty image

Continuing to explore in nature, I found that the colours of gold, red and green repeated themselves in many different ways.

Detail of stone pathway at Colquitz River Park

Detail of vine growing on stone wall

Another stone wall, detail

And of course, there is always vibrant colour along the streets of James Bay and Fairfield.

James Bay Fence

Fairfield house

James Bay house

I enjoyed the colours and landscape design of this scene from the Park.

Beacon Hill Park

I found this scene with complementary colours of red and green in James Bay.

Complimentary colours of nature

Finally, I close with two more complementary colours, gold - and a bright shot of blue. 

I liked the sentiment on this kindness rock

Rain, Rivers, and Watersheds

Fall rains are here. I am listening to the sound of rain pinging on the roof as I write this. The sound heralds the beginning of winter rains for the coast.

I can expect to hear a lot of rain in the next months. This is when the majority of Victoria's rainfall will happen.

Victoria's average monthly rainfall. Notice the huge difference between the dry summer months, and the wet winter months. Source: https://weatherspark.com/y/466/Average-Weather-in-Victoria-Canada-Year-Round

I have been thinking about the connection between rainfall and rivers. 

Earlier this year, in January, Vancouver Island had an amazing winter storm. This resulted in huge rainfall over large parts of the island. Shortly after, I hiked with friends along Pease Creek, in Gowland Todd Provincial Park. 

The park was alive with water. Motion was everywhere; it felt like the forest was in flow, as water dripped from branches, seeped over the ground, and ran in rivulets towards the valley bottom. Saturated soil was oozing and slumping. The trail was mud, sometimes filled with pools of water.

Pease Creek February 1, 2020, after a big rainfall event (Gowland Todd Provincial Park)

Pease Creek emptying into McKenzie Bight, February 1, 2020

The rivers of Vancouver Island are unique in Canada, because of winter rainfall. Unlike rivers elsewhere in the country, those on the Island have their peak flows in the winter months. Everywhere else the biggest flows are associated with spring runoff from snow melt. 

Here are two "hydrographs" which show the difference:

A hydrograph for the Cowichan River in 2003, showing how it peaks in the winter (Source: Capital Regional District - https://www.crd.bc.ca/education/protection-stewardship/watersheds/watershed-basics/watershed-water-flows)

. 

A hydrograph for the Fraser River, 2003. Data are missing for January and February. The river peaks in the spring due to the watershed of the interior, and spring snow melt. Source: (Source: Capital Regional District - https://www.crd.bc.ca/education/protection-stewardship/watersheds/watershed-basics/watershed-water-flows)

I love to think about the interplay of the gigantic forces of the weather from the sky, and the landscape systems of the earth - the terrain, the flows of water across the terrain, and the intricate connection with plants which grow upon it. 

The following two diagrams show the water cycle, and how it interacts with the landscape.

The circular system of water on earth. Source: US Geological Survey

 

The water cycle, showing the influence of urban development and human use of water. Source: waterbalance.ca

Nature is amazing at responding to the annual variation of water in Victoria. Here is one example - the Garry Oak. These trees grow only in southern Vancouver Island, and are well adapted to the dry summers and rainy winters, with deep tap roots.

Garry Oak trees in late summer. Virtually no rain falls on the landscape in Victoria in the summer months. 

The word "watershed" reflects the interplay of weather forces and terrain; it describes the area of land which drains into a particular creek, or a larger area which all would flow into a river.

Capital Regional District has a very progressive exploration of watersheds on their website. I have been impressed at the work they are doing to raise awareness. I suspect that some of this work can be attributed to Jody Watson, who for many years was the CRD "harbours and watersheds" coordinator, and now is supervisor of environmental planning and initiatives.

Excerpt from the CRD Watersheds map. Each colour represents a different creek watershed, except for orange. The orange areas are described as "drainage areas that flow towards the harbours and marine shorelines without a creek or river".  This would include storm drains, and water that seeps into the soil and naturally percolates towards the ocean.

Urbanization, and the paving of ground, has changed the way water flows. For years the approach to managing rainwater was to "pipe it away". This meant depletion of local groundwater reserves, and it also meant the culverting of creeks. 

Now, we have more understanding of the importance of keeping water in place, and reducing the amount of hardened ground with more porous landscaping.

There is a whole movement to managing rainwater and minimizing runoff to storm drains, through actions such as on-site rain barrels, and landscaping with swales and areas of deep, water absorbing soil. Here are a few examples of what we can do. These are taken from an earlier blog post I did in February 2019 (https://shuswapreflections.blogspot.com/2019/02/pondering-snow-and-rain.html)

 

Stormwater Swale - a feature of Zero Impact Development. Source: The Nature Conservancy

Individual properties can help keep rain in place, by diverting runoff to rain gardens, areas planted with deep soil and water loving plants. Source: http://www.thewalleye.ca/event/rain-garden-tour-2 (Thunder Bay, Ontario)

A local Victoria example of an effort to create a  rain garden

Detail from the rain garden at Fishermen's Wharf Park. 

As I enjoy the rain over the winter months, I will continue to marvel at the remarkable ways of nature. We humans will never be able to replicate nature, but perhaps we'll be able to reduce the size of our footprints as we continue to learn.