As Saanich crews enter the halfway mark in a decade of plans to rebuild a forest – and all the layers that entails – in Cuthbert Holmes Park, they’re already eyeing an extension.
The park between Highway 1 and Tillicum Centre was agricultural land in the 1940s or so and abandoned by the ’70s, said Rick Hatch, natural areas assistant supervisor with Saanich Parks.
Within a decade, the site adjacent to Colquitz River became a thicket of invasive English hawthorn.
“We’re basically starting to build a forest from scratch, and it takes a lot of work, but I think we’re getting there,” Hatch said.
When the province rebuilt the intersection at McKenzie Avenue and Highway 1, the work included removal of a huge patch of trembling aspen trees, which translated into funding for a trio of Saanich parks. In Cuthbert Holmes, it meant a plan to rebuild the natural area while maintaining a usable park for residents and visitors.
Now in year five of a 10-year plan, they spent a good chunk of the funding the first couple years, Hatch said.
A new accessible path, and its split rail fence to keep two- and four-legged visitors from straying, balances the rejuvenation of nature, with walkers seeking to immerse in that wilderness. It loops the park a far more environmentally sound 30 metres from the creek, three times the spacing the previous asphalt path provided.
In the space between, 40 or so different native plant species are trying to reestablish themselves. A “rough and loose” area between the Colquitz and the highway is dotted with red alder, Douglas fir, trembling aspen, big leaf maples, native black hawthorn and a remnant apple tree. It’s strewn with woody debris, including English hawthorn girdled so they’re dead but remain as habitat.
“Part of building a forest is more than just trees, it’s all the layers,” Hatch said. “We’re trying to bring that natural forest floor back into play because it’s required for habitat. It’s a necessary component of any system.”
Work for the waterway includes a series of alcoves to rebuild the natural flood zones, and the influx and variety of wildlife suggests the riparian area work is yielding success. Tied to Portage Inlet, the Colquitz fluctuates with the tide as the floods rise and fall, it draws in debris and bugs.
“We’ve seen bubbles of fish feeding on the insects, it’s super cool,” Hatch said. “We’ve seen seals come up chasing the salmon as high as these alcoves.”
In another area, where English hawthorn was cleared as part of a UVic student’s work, young (relative to their longevity) Garry oaks start to thrive. In other areas of the one-hectare project, long-dormant lilies and camas made an appearance. They’re far from the only wild things making Saanich staff, walkers and the steady stream of students smile.
A heron called Howard loves to fish in the ponds created by crews, a trio of otters are well-known but unnamed as far as Hatch knows. There’s little sign of an anonymous beaver, who once hacked down dozens of their saplings for snacking, but it too could be lingering.
A pile of rocks serves as a snake hibernaculum (where they spend winter), logs with chiseled-out notches create salamander homes and standing dead logs offer bats an option to the bat boxes perched on the hill.
“It’s insane in the springtime how many birds come here and utilize the space,” Hatch said.
Those first years were spent scraping it down to bare earth and starting from scratch, spending on trees, plants and work to create the layers of a forest ecosystem. Labour, equipment and volunteers were critical, and continue to be.
Volunteers from the Pulling Together program did 15,000 hours of work across many of Saanich’s 174 parks last year. Primarily in the 80 or so natural parks, including Cuthbert Holmes.
Nearly midway through the plan, they’re more than midway through the work. With over a hectare now established and nearing the maintenance-only stage, they hope to extend another 200 metres north by sourcing federal funding.
“It’s going to take decades for this to turn into a forest, but slowly we’re building that.”
