the Acorn The Newsletter of the Conservancy Number 37, Winter 2008 Transitions: SSIC gets a new Executive Director Karen >> >> Linda Karen is and always has been passionate about the It is a daunting task taking over the job of running the environment. Many of the photos I found showed Karen on Conservancy: there are daily administrative chores and long the land; searching, observing, appreciating and sharing her term planning strategies to learn, and there is the challenge passion with others. You couldn’t help but feel excited and of trying to fill Karen Hudson’s hiking boots. positive around her. Karen’s success resulted from her ability to channel her passion and commitment into focussed thinking and actions. A very quick learner who initiated meaningful projects which often included partnerships with many on and off island organisations. The Eco Home Tour wasn’t just a fundraising event, it also contributed to the understanding of sustainable living for the public. Our stewardship projects weren’t just grant driven they resulted in the protection of land and rare species through land owner contacts. The respect and the presence that the SSIC enjoys in the community is the result of Karen’s work over the past six years: • From a small, cramped room, to an inviting, efficient office Linda in her office with wired workstations for four; Linda Gilkeson, Inside: President’s Page ...... 2 • From no stewardship projects to a record $114,000 in who took over as the Director’s Desk ...... 3 2007; Conservancy’s Executive Library Program ...... 3 • From no employees to five for most of last year; Director this January, is Green Calendar ...... 3 • From 125 members to 910 and counting; probably not trying to fill Yellow Montane Violet ...... 4 • From a small society, to a large, respected , well known anyone’s boots but her own Stewardship Project ...... 5 environmental conservancy; – but if anyone is qualified Natural History • From a limited budget and no assets to an organization to bring the organization Winter Pond...... 6 that owns land and has funds. through the next leg of its Events And wow, can Karen multi-task, she put us all to shame journey, she is the woman Calendar...... 8 (well me anyway). Karen never did only one thing at once! I to do it. We recently shared Inside SSIC wondered how she could be on the phone, on the computer, a pot of tea and talked Stewards in Training...... 10 and be totally aware of everything going on in the office, all about her thoughts on her Book Review at the same time. new position. Sacred Journey...... 11 I’m going to miss Karen. I respect her passion, her Linda’s impressive Environmental Action devotion to her daughter, her common sense, and her resume includes working Day...... 12 priorities. I’m going to miss her and I’m going to miss Chet, with the provincial too. Peregrine Falcon...... 13 – Samantha Beare Continued on page  Essential Details...... 15 http://saltspringconservancy.ca/events President’s Page Things That Last In spite of our vows, we will let the link between Karen and spring day at Ford Lake when, blindfolded, he felt the cold, the fine and practical things she accomplished blur and quick strike-and-go of leaping treefrog, the day he tasted his fade with the detritus of time, like a trail too rarely traveled. first thatcher ant, a lemon spark on his tongue. In spite of our personal certainty tonight we will not long There is a grown woman who tends her woods with remember the way Karen strode with us through dripping new understanding and unquenchable love. woods to the crest of Mt. Erskine, or looked up from her desk “But your woods are so wild!” a friend exclaims. and smiled her democratic greeting, or kept alert through “I am as chaotic as my forest,” she replies. “The woods turtle-race meetings. are as orderly as my life.” Karen will be forgotten as I and thee will be, and that is “We witness under the same surprising sky.” as it should be. We live only in our own time. We will make This is your work, Karen. room for others. An oak and a fir and an arbutus watch sun and storm

Volunteer wardens Terry Ridings and Larry Appleby building an and sea together, clinging to ancient rock, chancing the exclosure for Yellow Montane Violets on Mt. Tuam compusions of circumstance as all life must. To be given the What matters is that for Karen, her time with us was chance to take your chances: this is the first hope of being. one when friendships were made, when her understanding This these three have, because of you. of people and the meaning of community grew apace, when Don’t ask that we always remember, that neuron and her daily achievements were tangible and satisfying. synapse, disk and file, preserve your mark forever. What matters is that in Karen’s years with us our Know, instead, that your song has been heard, that it is burgeoning membership and loyal volunteers felt served, and always will be a melody in the Island’s grand chorale. supported, energized. These, your works, have that ineffable and timeless quality There is a depth, I believe, at which we and all life Keats must have had in mind: around us share an awareness, a memory below common A thing of beauty is a joy forever. memory, a mute but resonant partnership. If that is true, Its loveliness increases, it will never there is a permanent record in our community, as there is in Pass into nothingness, but will keep hill and forest, of Karen’s time. A bower for us, and a sleep There is, for example, a harum-scarum, boy in school Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. who doesn’t yet know the many decades he will remember a

 The Acorn - Newsletter of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy Director’s Desk Director’s Desk As of the first of January I took up the Executive Director New Conservancy Green 2009 Calendar position–and I have been running fast ever since to catch up with the wide variety of activities of the Conservancy. Apart Because of a special donation by Michael Levy, the from the enjoyable experience of having a job so close to Conservancy is producing a green calendar for 2009 that will home, I am really excited by this opportunity to play a part go on sale this spring in the Saturday Market. All proceeds in work of the Conservancy. I know it will take me awhile to from this calendar will go towards funding our Stewards in get up to speed (Karen is a hard act to follow!), and I ask you Training school program for 2008/9. to bear with me while I learn the ropes. Michael came to the Conservancy and said he was going In the short time I have been at the job so far, I have to do a 2008 calendar but ran out of time (running The Fritz been very impressed with the knowledge and commitment theatre). He wondered if we would like his images and the of our staff, our Board and the other volunteers that I have work he had done on the design and set-up, including a met. I look forward to meeting many more of you as we business idea, as a donation. He thought the calendar would work together on Conservancy projects this year. make a good fundraiser for the Conservancy. The School Something I would like you to check if you have Committee had been looking for new ways to fund the provided us your email address for messages is whether you School Program, so we said yes, and thank you Michael for have been receiving email from the Conservancy. We have a thinking of us! very high number of rejected messages coming back from The School Committee quickly put together a Calendar various servers, which may be because we no longer have a Committee made up of school program volunteers (Bristol current e-mail address for you (please send us an update if Foster, Claudia Pickstone, Donna McWhirter, Tangachee that is the case: [email protected] ). Goebl, Victoria Skinner, David Denning and Jean Gelwicks) It may also be because your spam filtering software is and went to work. intercepting the messages. This has been a problem for a Part of Michael’s business plan was to have green number of our members, so if you haven’t been receiving businesses sponsor each month of the calendar. This we e-mail, please check your spam folder. If you find the have done and are proud to announce that we have just conservancy messages in the spam folder you can designate about sold the entire year. Our green business partners are the address as ‘not spam’ or something similar, depending SSI Cheese, Moonstruck Cheese, The Salt Spring Coffee on your software. Company, Salt Spring Books, Harbour House, Foxglove, The – Linda Gilkeson Pinch Financial Group, Stowel Lake Farm, Gulf Island School District 64, Harland’s Chocolates, SS Nature Works, and The Fritz Threatre. We are pleased to endorse these businesses Education/Schools and happy they want to support the school program. SSIC Partners Again with the Library When we say “green” calendar we don’t just mean because the Conservancy is producing it, it is green. Or Last summer six of our members presented interactive talks even that our sponsors are trying to be green as possible. to children ages 4 to 9 at the library. The theme was Catch We mean our calendar will be produced on 100% recycled the Reading “Bug” and our members presented topics such as paper; is the size it is because this means no paper is wasted bees (Deb McGovern), mosquitoes (Faye Morgensen), wood in the printing of the calendar; the inks used are the most bugs (Donna McWhirter), dragonflies (Nancy Braithwaite), environmentally friendly and there is no extra paper wasted ladybirds and other insects that eat aphids (Linda Gilkeson), in packaging. Careful thought has gone into making this pond “bugs” (David Denning). calendar earth friendly. This time the program runs on the last Friday of the There will be a formal launch of the calendar on April month from January to June, as well as Wednesdays and 20th, 2008 at The Fritz Cinema. Conservancy volunteers will Fridays of spring break. The library staff members read a be selling them at the market, Fall Fair, educational events story to the children and our members provide an interactive, and Christmas craft fairs. hands-on talk with lots of visual aids. Please look for our new calendar and support our Speakers for the spring series are: Nancy Braithwaite, fantastic, one of a kind school program. We want to thank Bristol Foster, Jean Gelwicks, Deb McGovern, Brian Michael Levy, all members of the Calendar Committee and Smallshaw, Andrea LeBorgne, and David Denning. our Green Sponsors. If this calendar is a success, we hope to So see you at the library with your child, grandchild, make a Conservancy green calendar an annual fundraising neighbour or friend. The time is 1pm and the fun awaits. project. – Deborah Miller – Jean Gelwicks

Winter 2008  Yellow Montane Violets Found

When fog rolls over the mountain even the most familiar making them virtually impossible to find. landmarks – a skeletal snag, a leaning fir or a stately Garry In the end, a staggering 19,278 plants were counted, oak – become strangers looming abruptly out of the mist. confirming this population as the second largest in . Visibility drops to 5m or less and even the brightly coloured 22 volunteers contributed 206 hours to this project. jackets of volunteers Kees Visser, Lynn Thompson and Mark Once we mapped the size and location of the patches Ritchie fade to cloudy white. We are all moving slowly, of Yellow Montane Violet, we built a number of exclosures staring at the ground, a handful of bamboo skewers in our to keep out sheep. In the next few years, we will assess the hands. Every time we spot the telltale gray-green hairy leaf impact of grazing by sheep on the yellow montane violet by of a Yellow Montane Violet, we mark it with a skewer, one comparing how violets fare inside the exclosures with those of over 10,000 eventually purchased for the project (you get outside them. odd looks when you go into Patterson’s and buy 500 shish The SSIC and the violets would like to thank the kebab skewers, and they start asking questions when you following contributors to this project – we couldn’t have come back the next day and do the same thing!). done it without you! We are mapping and counting the federally threatened Volunteers, consultants and staff: Amelia Argu, Ann Yellow Montane Violet, one small plant at a time. The plan was Anderson, Ann Richardson, Brenda Beckwith, Carolyn a simple one, suggested by Dr. Hans Roemer in 2006 when Masson, Chris Junck, Dave, Todd and Yannick from GOERT, we’d found far more patches of YMV on the mountain than Harp Gill (Transport Canada), Jane Richardson, Joan Werner, anyone thought were there. We had estimated the population Joe Crowley, Kate Leslie, Kees Visser, Kinkade Matthias, on the mountain to be a couple of thousand. Hans’ idea was Larry Appleby, Laura Matthias, Lugh Annschild-Lovering, that rather than estimate the population by marking off plots Hans Roemer, Lynn Thompson, Mark Ritchie, Paul Linton, and counting within the plots and then multiplying by the Rachel Ogis, Saraphina Ogis, Terry Ridings. area covered by the plants as he had done for several years at Funders: Garry Oak Ecosystem Recovery Team (GOERT), the site of the largest population of YMV in Canada, Somenos Interdepartmental Recovery Fund, Salt Spring Foundation, Garry Oak Preserve, we would actually count individual The Government of Canada Habitat Stewardship Program plants. We would use pin flags to mark the perimeter of a for Species at Risk, Vancouver Foundation. patch of YMV, then use skewers to mark individual plants – Robin Annschild, SSIC Biologist starting at one side of the polygon and working towards the other. Hans gave me instructions to purchase skewers and paint the tops of them white, to increase visibility. When I arrived at the site on that first sunny morning in April with 1500 white tipped skewers in a box, both Hans and Paul Linton, tireless warden of Salt Spring’s Ecological Reserves, laughed, saying “we’ll never need that many!”. We began “staking” the polygon which we believed to be the largest. The violets grow so tightly together here that they formed a solid carpet. Hours later, we had used all 1500 skewers and had begun pulling up and counting them. “Count and drop a bundle of 100 and then you can walk around picking up and counting bundles of 100,” instructed Hans. That first polygon contained 4530 plants – more than we had thought grew on the whole mountain! It was by the time we’d counted about 2/3 of it that we began to reassess this project. Count every single yellow montane violet on Mt. Tuam? What were we thinking? These are the sort of thoughts that go through your mind as you carefully place the 1500th skewer into the ground beside a small plant, looking ahead at a miniature forest of violets, extending as far as your eyes – mere inches from the ground – can see. I began to think about ways to bring in reinforcements, for it was clear that the three of us would not be able to complete this task in the short window when the violets are up and before the grass overtakes them, Yellow Montane violet, Viola praemorsa praemorsa

 The Acorn - Newsletter of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy Stewardship Project Wraps Up

We thought you might enjoy reading about some of to get in touch should you happen to see one of these rare the highlights of the Conservancy’s fifth grant-funded beauties (see the article on the Peregrine Falcon in this issue stewardship project. of The Acorn for more details). We will soon be searching out If you live in the areas of the island where the Sharp- some old historical sites for Macoun’s Meadowfoam – a small tailed Snake are found, you may have attended one of our ephemeral plant that grows in vernal pools in early spring. Sharp-tailed Snake neighbourhood meetings – sort of like a It is known from Ruckle Park and there is one historical snake tupperware party. We typically invite landowners close sighting from the shoreline southeast of Ruckle Park. Every to a known site for the snake and give a short presentation year as part of our project we hire a program evaluator to on the snakes. We invite landowners to participate in our poll some of our project participants to help us evaluate the Sharp-tailed Snake detection project by signing up for a site effectiveness of our program and improve it in future years. visit by our own snake expert Laura Matthias and placing If you participated in our project in any way, you may receive artificial cover objects on your land to help find the snake. a call from Jill Peers who will be doing the evaluation for us Using this technique landowners have more than quadrupled this year.

Photo by Paul Linton The Conservancy received $101,645 in funding from the following funders in 2007: the Government of Canada the number of known STS sites on SSI – from four known Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk, Vancouver sites when our Species at Risk projects began in 2004 to 18 Foundation, Victoria Foundation ( Fund), known sites in 2007! Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team, and the Salt Spring Our project wasn’t only about snakes! Our project Island Foundation. Any of you who dropped by the office in manager Brenda Beckwith gave a presentation about the last months of 2007 probably heard the sound of several Garry Oak Ecosystems last fall and provided stewardship computers groaning with the effort of writing another information to several landowners with Garry Oak round of grant applications to fund our 2008 program. Ecosystems on their land. Well, perhaps the computers weren’t groaning, but your It was exciting to count and map the second largest hard-working staff were! We will find out in April whether population of Yellow Montane Violet in Canada this spring on our efforts were successful in securing funding to continue Mt. Tuam as part of this project (see the article in this Acorn). our work with landowners to locate and protect our rarest If you live in Peregrine Falcon or Phantom Orchid habitat, treasures – the rare species of Salt Spring Island. you may have recently received a letter from us inviting you – Robin Annschild, Biologist Winter 2008  Natural History Winter Pond Below a cold, translucent skin Often my binoculars will reveal a four-centimeter stickleback Forms of summer lie suspended carried crosswise in the merganser’s bill, wriggling to avoid Like promises unfulfilled its final confined swim. After newts and sticklebacks, it’s all Like promises – and like guesswork. Dragonfly larvae would be worth some effort, The clutter of old cabins I think, and for the sake of relatives a swimming tree frog Seen through glass like ice. should be well insured. Shall we sweep away this skin Last January a long cold spell locking away the Bring light and early fire pond ended when strong southwest winds brought mid- To slow and patient beauty? latitude warmth. The pond thawed. Explorers soon came: Stay! It will give way buffleheads, a pair of mallards, a female ring-necked In its own good time, spring. duck. Oddly, they didn’t immediately sort themselves into habitual feeding niches – mallards tipping in the rushes, the ring-neck diving in shallow open water, the bufflehead A cataract of ice grew hourly last night to cloud the eye of claiming rights to dive anywhere. Instead, all of them fed on the pond. By morning the veil was complete. The air warmed something small, floating or drifting just under the surface, imperceptibly. Water from our soggy orchard drained into common and distributed all over the pond. Mallards fed the pond. The vague warming and the movement together confidently, paddling with many changes in direction, sifting made the fragile ice withdraw from that corner of the pond. with partly-submerged bill or jabbing every second or two. As it does all winter, pond ice came and went like a brittle The bufflehead seemed awkward but persisted in its own tide. version of jab-and-grab for several minutes, until reverting A slim company of hooded mergansers follows that ebb to its accustomed deep dives. The ring-necked duck tried to and flow. There may be a half-dozen in all, coming alone mimic what the others did, or so it seemed to me. or in twos, rarely four or five. I see two today before first I went to the pond’s edge to solve the puzzle. “A ‘hatch’ light, arrow-slim on quick wings, flying from Trincomali of some insect?” I wondered. No: ten pond samples from Channel to judge the pond. They make only one circle if the a jar lashed to my two meter fruit picker were as clear as pond is frozen, two if there is open water. I lose them in the Highland tap water. Peering for small swimmers didn’t help. dimness when they angle below the background mass of fir. A few iris seeds drifted close to or at the surface, but too few When they land the glinting splashes direct my eye, but they to match the frequent snatchings of duck bills. Then I saw disappear again, dark feathers on dark water. the alder seeds. Lots of them. A cup of coffee later there is enough light to see the Alders ring half of the pond’s shore. They had borne gleam of white as one bird after the other rolls to preen its a good seed crop that year, which flocks of gossipy siskins belly. A sip more and I can follow the silvery wakes and dimly celebrated in the treetops. The recent gales blew many alder winking circles as a bird, itself invisible, swims and dives. seeds – tiny oval nutlets with wings – onto the ice, a windfall Every waterbird has a signature dive. Pied-billed grebes for some four-score juncoes that winter here. When the thaw famously deflate – I’m still looking for the valve – and sink came the floating seeds were blown erratically by catspaw vertically, eyes wary to the last. Loons make themselves heavy, breezes. Hundreds were ground fine in duck gizzards. Waterlogged thousands joined the detritus accumulating at but before the back is awash they slip down in powerful, deep the bottom. Thousands reached shore and joined the lottery dives. Show-off goldeneyes announce talent with an upward for germination and survival. jump before launching stocky bodies ahead and under, their If there is a bird on the pond I must attend to it first; bent and protruding wings adding flurry to splash. Hooded all else waits. In the cold months there are days and hours mergansers pause in their quiet paddling, give a final look without birds in view. Then I am free to absorb everything. around, then slide their slender lances between ripples. Only Those are times of rich surprises. last-second flicks of short, stiff tails to properly angle the In windless hours while the world holds its breath, dive, mar the smooth magic. all motion congealed, the quiet beauty of trees and shrubs John James Audubon didn’t linger over the question of what hoodies dive for. His gun would boom, and in a minute draws me as if it shouted aloud. My bird-seeking eye shrugs the bird’s open gullet would provide the answer. Patience past the grey trunks of alders, but with unprejudiced eye I costs me little and saves mergansers a lot, so I watch. When notice the delicate shadings and mottlings of the main stem, the hoodie hunts rough-skinned newts there is no puzzle. the lenticelled branches, the bright pastel patches of lichens The duck emerges, instantly paddles away from suddenly- enjoying the best days of their lives. One white birch, planted distrusted companions, and spends five minutes thrashing to recall our Alaska years, is an ivory column piercing a toxic mucus from the orange-bellied amphibian. No Spanish crown of pink-brown twigs, permanently nodding toward bull with red cape caught on a horn could be more obvious. the pond. One shoreline willow is yellow-green, another  The Acorn - Newsletter of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy Natural History

is yellow-orange. A thicket of wild roses, deep wine-red in hub, dark grey hubcap, white tire. Each circle is a meter or winter thaw, becomes a thorned cavern, beloved by quail, in two across. The ragged black center looks like a starfish – and heavy snows. there fancy runs amok. Anyone can see that several starfish Then a storm comes, wind an audible surf at first, either fell from the sky or burst out of the pond overnight. drowning the neighbour’s woods. Then it pounces on my “They grow tired of too-salty meals,” I muse, “ and clasp surprised firs. For an instant only the high branches sway, their arms around diving cormorants, hitch-hiking to the then the middle limbs wave in the expanding wind, and sky. Giddy with air, they fall, swooping like frisbees, and finally the massive trunks lean, return, lean again. Battalions plunge with a bruising bellyflop through the thin, thawing of air swarm the forest. Chaos comes as an unpredictable pond ice. I wish it weren’t so deep, so dark; I might find force meets infinitely varying resistance from tall or short them there yet.” trees, thicker or thinner trunks, limbs within or beyond Another day, another and colder night. The mushy snow shelter, flexible or stiff. Branchlets snap, cones rattle to the refreezes. Looking through the wisp of steam from hot coffee ground. Millions of Douglas-fir seeds whirl like miniature I see a transformed pond. There is a broad, featureless band maple samaras onto new ground. around it, taking up half of its area. Within that zone is a Do you know Emily Dickinson’s poem, “The Sky Is wandering-edged polygon, its shape roughly reflecting the Low?” uneven rim of the pond. Inside the polygon are alternating The sky is low, the clouds are mean, light and dark ribbons, the several outermost following the A traveling flake of snow edge of the polygon but, inward, re-forming into squares Across the barn or through a rut within squares. There is even more complexity: each light Debates if it will go. band actually is made of alternating light-dark transverse A narrow wind complains all day stripes: a necktie gone aquatic. I sketch the patterns, ponder How someone treated him. the action of freeze-thaw pressures I know nothing about. Nature, like us, is sometimes caught In the end I put the cerebral stuff aside. I’m happy to have Without her diadem. found the diadem. I must be true to myself, and give the last word to a That is one truth; I have felt it. There is an equal truth - I bird. think Ms Dickinson would agree – which is that even when Winter is losing its hold. Tree frogs think they have a the clouds are mean and the wind whines in complaint, the speech to make, work on a draft. I was stopped in my tracks diadem may glitter. yesterday, as I walked past our leafless perennials, by the When snow and ice beset the pond, then, willy-nilly, I loud, sweet odor of witch-hazel in bloom. To me, its contrast study snow and ice. In the subarctic winters such a watch with the neutered and chilled wet-earth smell of winter was can be a slow business. Here the winter air wanders above as great as seeing a sarong in Beijing’s sea of Mao jackets. and below the thresholds where ice and water become each Today I look at the morning from my usual perch. The pond other. A pond rarely looks the same two days running. For is dusky and still. The far bank is a semicircle with an accent eyes accustomed to flickering screens the action may drag, line dividing reflection from original. I hear a goose and look but it pleases me. up to see two. They flew over the roof above me and are Here is a sequence in December: aligned for the pond. Their wings are set in a glide, their The pond freezes, stays clean and gleaming all day. backs the warmest of browns and as imbricated as shakes Night brings a snow squall, two centimeters of snow cover on a barn.Their glide is too fast for landing. Just a wingspan the ice. The snow’s weight sinks the ice ever so little. All apart, they lift their breasts, cup their wings and hold flared around the shore a dark band forms where water leaks up tails stiffly against the resisting air. For an instant their into the snow. Before the dark zone completely rings the bodies are twinned, lovely brown against the glossy pond, pond, two, then three, grey circles appear in the whiteness the white U of their tails the only vivid lines on the entire of center ice. Perhaps leaves caught by freezing water later dark canvas. absorbed cloud-filtered sunlight and became weak spots. Or The birds land, swim to the open box on a post driven unevenly expanding ice fractured at pressure points. Hour into the shallows. The goose flies onto the box, steps in. Head by hour the dark peripheral band and stray circles expand. erect and alert, she sits down on the soaked and moldy hay By day’s end there are ten circles, a few touching another or from last year’s nest. A moment only, then she jumps down the shore band. to join the gander. The temperature holds just above freezing. In the It will be a noisy spring on the pond. morning the remaining circles look like car wheels: black – Bob Weeden Winter 2008  Features Linda Gilkeson Continued from page  65 people from all different levels and areas of knowledge, government on environmental issues since 1991. She began keeping them active and on top of things, and getting the by putting together programs to reduce and eliminate reports in on time has certainly honed her management pesticide use, and since from 1992 until 2007 headed the skills. State of Environment Reporting Unit. She is also a well-known Linda is also very excited by upcoming big projects, author and teacher of gardening and pest management. including a major fundraising campaign. “What we really want to do just make sure there’s financial stability,” she explained. This means keeping the great core pieces great – such as habitat stewardship, public education, and land covenants. It also means “finding more options to keep to the path that the Conservancy wants to go.” While the Conservancy is certainly blessed to have acquired Linda on the team, she has equally anticipated the opportunity to work with the organization. Linda has also been looking forward to the chance to give up commuting to Victoria; not only will she leave her house and get back home at reasonable hours, she’ll be able to see her garden in the daylight and even attend nighttime functions not permitted by a 5 a.m. wake up routine. “I’ve missed out on a lot of things I would have liked to participate in,” she said, adding that she looks forward to meeting all the Conservancy members. She also plans on getting to know the island a lot better geographically, making a “systemic effort” to hike everywhere, including finding a trail from her home on Mount Belcher to the office. With fundraising, benefits and long term protection plans in her future, as well as continuing to teach master classes on gardening in Vancouver and on , Linda may find she still isn’t getting time to hike everywhere. But it’s safe to say that we look forward to her progress as much as she does. Board member Charles Dorworth and Karen Hudson mount sign – Elizabeth Nolan for the Mt. Erskine Conservation Area

With State of the Environment reports occurring every five years and the most recent filed in December, the timing was excellent for Linda to take over for Karen without leaving her responsibilities unmet. “We just finished the fourth State of the Environment Report and the best one yet,” Linda said. “I was able to finish up the project and have it safely delivered and out the door,” including having it posted on the web. Before taking over full time in January, Linda learned a lot about the Conservancy’s broader picture by attending December’s strategic planning session. Linda sees the job of Executive Director as a balance between giving direction and taking direction; while she will be acting at the direction of the Board, and she will also be a central person with a great deal of responsibility. In terms of her administrative tasks, her years working with the government have given Linda great organization Dr. Hans Roemer using skewers to count Yellow Montane Violets skills and problem solving capabilities. Heading a group of on Mt. Tuam

 The Acorn - Newsletter of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy Conservancy Events Upcoming Events

February 15 (Friday): Co-sponsored event with Island pathways: Peter Buckland from Cougar Annie’s Garden, 7pm, Community Gospel Chapel. March 4, 5 (Tuesday, Wednesday): Building Green Conference & Tradeshow. Exhibiting green building technologies available on Vancouver Island, Florence Filberg Centre, Courtenay BC. March 14 (Friday): Co-sponsored event with Trail and Nature Club: Wayne Campbell on Shore Birds, 7pm, Lion’s Hall. Lugh and Paul find Yellow Montane Violets March 15 (Saturday): Wayne Campbell workshop and walk to three marine sites. The Legend of Cougar Annie April 11 (Friday): Keith Ferguson, lawyer with During the early years of this century, pre-emptions of land Ecojustice Canada; formerly Sierra legal defense, 7pm, were commonplace on the West Coast. In Clayoquot sound, Lion’s Hall. only one wilderness homestead has endured. This is the April 20 (Sunday): Formal launch of the 2009 homestead of Ada Annie Arthur, well known on the coast as Conservancy Green calendar, at The Fritz Cinema. “Cougar Annie’s Garden”. Margaret Horsfield and her book Cougar Annie’s Garden May 16 (Friday): Matt Fairbarns on Native Plants, won the Haig-Brown Prize at the 2000 BC Book Awareness. 7pm, Lion’s Hall. Some 16,000 copies of the book have been sold and it is now May 17 (Saturday): Native Plant walk. in its third printing. This story continues to cast its spell. June: Look for announcement for Bullfrog Project event. Margaret, along with Peter Buckland (who single- handedly restored and embellished the gardens, and who has a story as interesting as Cougar Annie’s), will be here February 15, 2008 from 7:00 to 9:30 at the Community Chapel to give a slide show and talk. A suggested donation of $5.00 (includes refreshments) will help cover costs. This event is being co-sponsored by the Paddling Club and the Conservancy. This talk should be of interests to Garden Club members, history buffs, hikers, kayakers, naturalists and anyone who enjoys a good story.

Our school program gets kids into the woods! http://www.saltspringconservancy.ca/events Karen Hudson keeping her dog on a leash on Mt. Erskine

Winter 2008  Inside SSIC Stewards in Training Program News The Conservancy’s Stewards in Training School program has wetland ecosystem. grown from one grade to seven grades in four years. The • May/early June, grade 6/7s at Andreas Vogt Nature Conservancy has a crucial need to compile all the information Reserve studying Garry Oak ecosystem. created about our program into a manual so we don’t lose it. Please contact the Conservancy office, 538-0318 or In the four years we have had four coordinators, and over 60 [email protected], if you are interested in volunteers involved in the delivery of this program. Some supporting any of these programs as a volunteer. of this information is in the heads of past coordinators and volunteers, various files and notes stored in notebooks and boxes. We need a manual we can give to new coordinators, volunteers and teachers, principals, school trustees and other interested individuals and groups. Lucky for us Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) understood our need and has given us a grant of $3500 for our coordinators to pull all the information together and put it into one place. This manual will explain the purpose of the program, the main learning objectives, curriculum links at each grade level, and will serve as a “how to” for running a program, from recruiting and training volunteers to thanking volunteers and more. This manual will be on our web page for anyone to access and also in printed form. Volunteers, teachers, and Lunch break during one of our school programs other conservancy groups will be able to access the manual. We would like to very much thank MEC for their generous Thank you to our business members: donation that has made this project possible. Anchorage Cove B&B Murakami Auto Body & More Good News About Grants Baker Beach Cottages Repairs Besides the grant from MEC we have also received two Beddis House B&B Pharmasave other generous grants this year. One is from the Gaming Blue Horse Folk Art The Pinch Group Commission (Direct Access Program Grant) who we rely on Bold Bluff Retreat Pretzel Motors every year to support the school program, and the other is Bootacomputer Rammed Earth Canada from the TD Friends of the Environment Foundation. These Caprice Heights B&B Raven Isle Graphics two grants insure our program will be offered again this year. Cedar Mountain Studios Rock Salt Cafe We can’t say thank you enough to our grantors. Creekhouse Realty Ltd. Sandra Smith, Royal LePage Volunteers Needed for the Spring Duck Creek Farm Salt Spring Realty The Conservancy will be running three Stewards in Elsea Plumbing Salt Spring Adventure Co. Training programs this winter and spring and is actively Foxglove Farm & Garden Salt Spring Books recruiting volunteers. Supply Salt Spring Centre of Yoga Volunteers typically spend one or more days at one of The Fritz Movie Theatre Salt Spring Centre School our beautiful fieldtrip sites, working with small groups of Ganges Village Market Salt Spring Cheese children. We provide a training session for the volunteers Green Acres Resort Salt Spring Coffee so they can decide if they would like to shepherd a small Gulf Island School District Company group around to activities or teach an activity. If you enjoy Harbour House Hotel & Salt Spring Kayaking spending time in nature with children, please come to a Restaurant Salt Spring Natureworks training session to see what the program is all about. We Harlan’s Chocolates Natural Foods try to have two or three adults for each group of 6 to 8 Island Escapades Salt Spring Seeds students, so enthusiastic volunteers are always needed and Island Star Video Saltspring Soapworks welcomed. Karen Dakin, Accountant Spindrift at Welbury Point The upcoming programs are: Monsoon Coast Sprague Associates • March (first 3 weeks), grade 8s at Ganges Harbour Moonstruck Cheese Stowel Lake Farm Morningside Organic Terra Firma Builders studying freshwater and marine water chemistry and Bakery & Cafe Thrifty Foods invertebrates. Neil Morie, Architect Windsor Plywood • April/early May, grade 2/3s, at Ford Lake studying

10 The Acorn - Newsletter of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy Book Review Time for a New Story Review: “Sacred Journey: Gift of Earth and Spirit.” itself because both are moral subjects and moral objects. Robert C. Wild*, Trafford Publ. 2007. A third consequence of the New Story is that humans are encouraged to find the Sacred Presence in what science A lifetime ago Methodist Sunday-school teachers told me a has found out, not in what it cannot explain. Christian child’s version of the Christian story. Later I began to absorb theologians traditionally have been dismayed by scientific more complicated versions. Then family, professional life discoveries and have denied or opposed them because they and environmental activism filled my days. Religion drifted threatened the parables and miracles that gave the Old into a rarely-opened closet. Story much of its power. Evolution is an obvious example. I re-opened it in an odd way. For close to 20 years an The New Story accepts and marvels at evolution, even as inherent optimism propelled me through one environmental Darwinian ideas mortally frighten and anger big segments of campaign after another. “Surely,” I thought, “our arguments Christian believers. or the average Joe’s common sense will win the day soon, “Sacred Journey” is slim and readable, yet within it are and we’ll all see the error of our ways.” No matter how many more riches than I can describe here. If you are a Christian, battles were won – and there were enough to keep hope’s read it to see whether your behaviour toward nature is most spark from winking out – success in the war daily outran our related to the Old or the New Story. If you are religious but reach. “Why do the Philistines keep coming,” I wondered. not Christian, ask yourself whether the basic teachings of Some time in the late ‘70s I stumbled onto a new and growing your beliefs are responsive to the issues Wild explores. If trove of essays suggesting an answer: the fundamental out- you aren’t religious read this book to understand the text datedness, if not wrong-headedness, of parts of the Christian that underlies Canada’s history and explains many of the story. fundamental values of Canadian society and politics. This is where “Sacred Journey” gives its gift. Harvesting – Bob Weeden 30 years of his own thinking and that of scores of others, Bob Wild gives us a clear summary of Christianity’s Old Story and *Bob Wild, neighbour and friend of many Islanders, is its contribution by application or misapplication to today’s widely respected for his community work. So is Audrey. environmental crises. His criticisms of Christian orthodoxy Both are longtime members of the Conservancy. They live are all the more persuasive for the gentle modesty of their on the north end of Salt Spring Island, closer to the Sacred wording and for the experience – that of a retired Anglican Presence. priest – on which they are grounded. However, it is in his sketch of the New Story, now being written by Christian theologians urgently concerned about our present relation to nature, that Wild makes his most valuable offering. May I arouse your appetite with a few of his comparisons between Old and New Stories? In both Biblical Testaments, Yahweh is the external creator of the universe. Space, time and matter are the work of this Creator, who, like the wind, is known only by his/her/its works. Thus, Christians have distinguished a superior , Holy One, and themselves as made in the Creator’s image, from secular, inferior nature. We are free to objectify nature and treat it as a cornucopia. In the New Story the Sacred Presence (Wild’s favoured term for God) is immanent, hidden within and disclosed by the material world . Our everyday world is sacred – not good news for bulldozers. In the Old Story ethics and morality come to us through Divine revelation, as the Ten Commandments did. They are supernatural. There is no reason to look to nature for moral instruction. Because the New Story finds the Sacred Presence within nature as well as beyond it, nature can be teacher. When our behaviour brings emphatic response from nature we can codify the lessons as ethical principles and moral rules – rules that apply to our treatment of all life and Gaia Jean Gelwicks instructing students in the schools program

Winter 2008 11 Environmental Action Day

Gulf Islands Secondary School take action. Local workshop presenters include Briony Penn, 28 February 2008 Karen Hawboldt, and Brandon Bauer. The majority of our 8 am to 4:15 pm presenters, however, are coming from Vancouver and Victoria and they include Richard Hebda, BC Royal Museum, Terry Secondary School’s Environmental Action Day Glavin, author and conservationist, Dr. John Blatherwick, (EAD) is a positive action event to not only raise awareness in retired MHO Vancouver, and Environmental Activist, Betty the school and community about environmental and climate Krawczyk. Organizations that are also providing facilitators change issues, but also to provide ample opportunities to are WWF, Sierra Club, Check Your Head, Earthsave Canada, take action. Students planning EAD feel it is vital to present Living Oceans Society, and Ocean Sciences. pressing issues in an atmosphere that isn’t solely negative, To-date, contributions towards the funding of EAD have and to encourage students to foster a positive attitude been received from Islands Trust, Rotary Club, Gulf Islands towards the possibilities of tackling the difficulties we are Centre for Ecological Learning, The Women’s Institute, SS facing globally today. The goal is to not only give students Conservancy and three anonymous donors. a way to take action now, but also to promote them living a EAD coordinators are working in consultation with more sustainable life into the future, and to encourage others the Superintendent and the school board, the school to do the same. administration, several interested teachers, Global Awareness Environmental Action Day will feature opening and Leadership groups in the school, and the Earth Festival and closing keynote speakers and approximately twenty Society. It is anticipated that EAD will give students of GISS a workshops under the major categories of Food Issues, starting point for various initiatives and follow up to this day Ecosystem Destruction, Consumerism, and Climate Change will continue throughout the rest of the school year. Close to Home. For a taste of sustainability, local food will Since it is beyond the capacity of the high school cafeteria be served for students and presenters, in the cafeteria at to also provide lunch to the community. lunch. The event will involve all 600 GISS students and Could anyone attending from outside of GISS please be the community will also be invited to attend the keynote responsible for their own lunch. General public admission speakers and several of the workshops. by donation. As our opening speaker, we have activist and youth motivator Simon Jackson, 25-year-old founder and Chairman of the 6 million strong, Spirit Bear Youth Coalition. He will tell his unique, Power of One story. It includes how he overcame roadblocks and skeptics to help make the spirit bear one of the world’s foremost environmental issues and how he helped create an historic land use agreement. Our closing speaker will be Dr. Andrew Weaver, award winning UVic Professor, Earth and Ocean Sciences, who was a lead author of the UN IPCC, third and fourth scientific assessments. He will speak on the Science and Politics of Global Warming, and his presentation will cover the domestic and international policy options that can be introduced to deal with the issues. The workshops cover a wide range of topics, while the presenters themselves represent a gamut of approaches to environmentalism, providing students with exposure not only Volunteers Lugh Annschild-Lovering and Ann Anderson collect to key issues, but also to a variety of ways in which they can skewers in a Yellow Montane Violet plot

8:00 – 8:45 Signup for workshops For general public attendees (students will pre-register) 9:00 – 10:10 Keynote speaker Simon Jackson, The Power of One 10:15 – 11:30 Workshop 1 11:35 – 12:50 Workshop 2 12:50 – 1:50 Lunch Local/regional food in cafeteria for students/presenters 1:50 – 3:05 Workshop 3 3:10 – 4:15 Closing Speaker Dr Andrew Weaver, The Science and Politics of Global Warming

12 The Acorn - Newsletter of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy Peregrine Falcon Still Soaring High

The Peregrine Falcon is found almost around the entire globe, migrate from as well. New pesticides being permitted in with the exception of Antarctica, Iceland, and New Zealand. Canada may also pose a potential threat to future reproductive There are three recognized subspecies of Peregrine Falcons success of the Peregrine Falcon, as well as declining seabird in Canada; Anatus Peregrine Falcon, Falco pereginus anatum; populations, human disturbance at nest sites, and illegal Tundra Peregrine Falcon, F. p. tundrius; and Peale’s Peregrine harvesting for falconry. The success of the reintroduction of Falcon, F. p. pealei. The Anatum Peregrine Falcon occurs on Peregrine Falcons into the wild has allowed the public to Salt Spring Island and this subspecies has recently received remain faithful that we have some ability to shift the tides a federal assessment to move the status of the falcon from in the face of environmental disaster through such means as Threatened Status to Special Concern Status in Canada due environmental stewardship. Hopefully, it has also instilled to increased populations from large-scale reintroductions in us the need to change the way we view our relationship programs across North America. with the planet, and the incredibly fragile scale that we are The peregrine falcon is often known for its stealth as a dancing on at the tip of the fulcrum. hunter, plummeting to pluck its prey out of the sky at speeds If you have seen Peregrine Falcons on Salt Spring Island, over 300 km/hr. It prefers nesting on cliff ledges or crevices please contact the Salt Spring Island Conservancy with your usually with a southern exposure, and is territorial during the sightings at 538-0318 or [email protected]. breeding season, pairs nesting 1km or more apart. Females References: lay on average 3-4 eggs in a shallow hollow that they scrape COSEWIC 2007. COSEWIC assessment and update into the cliff ledge, adding no other nesting materials. Both status report on the Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus (pealei adults incubate the eggs for about 32 days, with the young subspecies - Falco peregrinus and pealei anatum/tundrius - fledging from the nest 35-45 days after hatching. Falco peregrinus anatum/tundrius) in Canada. Committee on The crow-sized raptor can be recognized in flight by its the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Ottawa. vii + bent wing silhouette. Other distinguishing features include 21 pp. (www.sararegistry.gc.ca/status/status_e.cfm). the dark cheek stripe below the eyes, slate-blue crown, Canadian Wildlife Service. January 2008. Hinterland back and upper side of wings. The underside of the falcon Who’s Who: Peregrine Falcon. http://www.hww.ca/hww2. is typically white or buff with some brown barring on the asp?id=60 lower parts of the body, legs and underwings. – Laura Matthias, SSIC Biologist The Peregrine Falcon preys on birds primarily, including seabirds, shorebirds, waterfowl, songbirds, and pigeons. Because it predominantly hunts from the air, the falcon prefers areas that are open, such as non-forested lands, including shores, marshes, fields, and river valleys. Peregrine Falcon populations had long been noted for their stability. However, populations in both Europe and North America began plummeting after the WWII and their declines were soon attributed to intensive use of Zorah Hudson-Wiltzen and a Fairy Door, Mount Erskine post-war persistent chemical pesticides, such as DDT. As predators at the top of the food chain, the Peregrine Falcons Enjoy Spring Birds! bioaccumulated the pesticides in their tissues by preying on birds and animals that had ingested and accumulated On, May 10th (Saturday) and 18th (Sunday), Bob Weeden pesticides that were found on sprayed grain crops and will trade bird-watching tips and amble around one of Salt poisoned insects. The result of these chemicals caused Spring Islands’ best birding places, Ford Lake, with anyone reproductive failure primarily through hindering eggshell wanting to join in. Bob likes to use ears, eyes and knowledge formation, causing populations to plummet. of local bird behaviour and habitats to identify all those lovely By the early 1970’s, both Canada and the United States but frustrating brush skulkers. Meet at the end of Garner Rd. had restricted the use of chemicals such as DDT. Large- at 9am with binoculars. scale captive-breeding and reintroduction programs took Please pre-register by contacting the Salt Spring Island place across Canada and the US and are the main reason Conservancy office, 538-0318 or ssiconservancy@saltspring. for the successful increases in populations of Peregrine com, or Bob Weeden at 537-5403. You must be a member Falcons today. However, persistent pesticides, including of the Conservancy. Annual society memberships are $10- DDT, continue to be used in other countires where Peregrine $35, and support our education and stewardship programs Falcons overwinter, and where some of their prey species locally.

Winter 2008 13 “Little and Often” : A new program for Fundraising Success! Squitty Bay Provincial people who walk our protected lands Park Expansion

While you are walking a trail use a few minutes of your time The Lasqueti Island Nature Conservancy and the Islands Trust to make a difference; perhaps set yourself a target of pulling Fund reached their goal of raising $250,000 in a whirlwind ten small broom plants along the trail on each visit - pick 2007 summer campaign to protect the Iversen/Tyler property a spot and make it your own. Also we would value reports next to Squitty Bay Provincial Park on Lasqueti Island. With of problems and in the spring the trail needs light regular our contribution, the Ministry of Environment was able to trimming. For the more hearty there are times when work purchase this beautiful 38.46 (95 acre) oceanfront property parties are out pulling broom bushes or perhaps dealing from Terry Tyler and Ingrid Iversen for $1,340,000, a price with a fallen tree. Come and join us! well below market value. The property owners provided If you have an interest or would like more information a significant donation through Environment Canada’s please email [email protected] or Ecological Gift Program because they had a vision of the phone the Conservancy office at 538 0318 property being protected as a park. – Terry Ridings (AVNR warden) This property is a Gulf Island treasure. The protection of this property will result in a four-fold increase in the size Creekside Rainforest Campaign of Squitty Bay Provincial Park from 13 hectares to more than 51 hectares. The property features almost a kilometre There is no time to waste if the fundraising campaign for of coastline with sheltered bays and beaches, older forests, the Creekside rain forest is to succeed over by the end of a heritage orchard, a salmon-bearing creek, and windswept February. Volunteers are urgently needed to help with such coastal bluffs. The property is also a fine example of the things as publicity and outreach, the fundraising dinner and endangered Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem, which is in other tasks. Please contact Maureen Moore: 537-1712. urgent need of protection as it is under extreme pressure from agricultural and urban development. Join the Water Preservation Society (WPS) The Lasqueti community and Islands Trust Fund donors, including the Nature Trust of BC and the Marine Have you ever considered the future of our drinking water? Parks Forever Society, pulled together to protect this special Approximately 70% of us take it from lakes, and an est. 30% place by contributing over $143,000 in donations. The BC from groundwater. In either case limited hydrologic data are Trust for Public Lands provided $107,000 resulting in the available to tell us with confidence how much water these community reaching its $250,000 goal. sources can continue to yield on a reliable basis. Continuing In celebration of the success, the former owners of the growth and development, uncertainties of climate change, land sent this joyous note to all involved: and political and bureaucratic decision-making will each November 15, 2007 impact avail-ability in future. Water quality is also affected Congratulations on your new park. Enjoy it, love it, take through human land use activities. Become better informed care of it, let the salmon run and run. Let the kiddies play and a part of the voice which cares about drinking water. on the beaches. Let the forest thrive. Somebody get together Water Preservation Society, PO Box 555, Salt Spring a pruning party for the orchard and distribute the apples, Island, BC, V8K 2W3. Membership: $10/yr. Donations: as pears and plums far and wide. Let the flowers bloom on the you choose. Each receive tax deductible receipts. We promise headlands and the sheep roam everywhere else. to keep you informed. Please include your mailing address It’s a place where a lot of very important and magical and email. things happened to us, and I’m sure many others (including, I hear, one birth). Hopefully this place will continue to induce magic in a lot of people for a long time. Thanks to everybody who helped make this dream, for us, and for a lot of Lasquetians, come true. – Terry Tyler and Ingrid Iversen The Islands Trust Fund along with the Lasqueti Island Conservancy wish to thank all the conservation-minded individuals and organizations who answered our call for help Karen Hudson contemplating her future and gave generously to protect the Iversen/Tyler property.

14 The Acorn - Newsletter of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy Essential details Office Update Woodworker Wanted Items Wanted: Wanted: Woodworker interested in building a set of small, Donations of any of the following gratefully received. wall mounted shelves for the Conservancy office to display Office Items Other Items our brochures. Air Miles Saws, clippers Speaker phone Canadian Tire $ Field guides Hand secateurs We would also appreciate donations of gifts, such as new books or items related to nature or conservation, to give to our educational speakers, who volunteer their time. Small Things Help! Please remember to put your shopping receipt in the green Conservancy receipt box at GVM and you can get a Thrifty Foods SMILE card at the Conservancy office and 5% of your purchase will go to our School Program. You can also credit the Conservancy when you take back your bottles to the Salt Spring Refund Centre (Bottle Depot at GVM). A big thank you goes to Cordula Vogt who collects and manages the SSIC President Bob Weeden and Karen Hudson GVM receipts on our behalf. The Acorn is the newsletter of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy, a local non-profit society supporting and enabling voluntary preservation and restoration of the natural environment of Salt Spring Island and surrounding waters. We welcome your feedback and contributions, by email to [email protected] or by regular mail. Opinions expressed here are the authors’, not subject to Conservancy approval. Editor: Elizabeth Nolan Layout: Brian Smallshaw Membership Application Volunteer Opportunities Youth (Under 16) 1 yr @ $15 _ We have a Volunteer Application Form Executive Director: Linda Gilkeson Board of Directors: Senior or Low-Income: 1 yr @ $20 _ 3 yr @ $60 _ that best describes areas you wish to Samantha Beare (Treasurer) Regular Single 1 yr @ $25 _ 3 yr @ $75 _ help in. For now, which areas interest Maureen Bendick Regular Family 1 yr @ $35 _ 3 yr @ $105 _ you? Please check off: Jean Brouard Charles Dorworth Group/School 1 yr @ $35 _ 3 yr @ $105 _ r Office Work Robin Ferry Business 1 yr @ $55 _ 3 yr @ $165 _ r Landowner Contact Jean Gelwicks (Secretary) r Information Table at events Ashley Hilliard Maxine Leichter (Vice-president) Name: ______r Education Events Steve Leichter Address: ______r Eco-Home Tour Deborah Miller ______r Information Table at SSI Fall Fair/ Jane Petch Brian Smallshaw Postal Code: ______Craft Fairs Bob Weeden (President) Phone:______r Joining a SSIC Committee (Land Doug Wilkins Email:______Restoration & Management, The Salt Spring Island Fundraising, Covenants, Conservancy r Please send me the Acorn via e-mail. Acquisitions, Education, #201 Upper Ganges Centre, (We NEVER give out member’s email addresses to anyone!) Stewardship, or Environmental 338 Lower Ganges Rd. Mail: PO Box 722, r This is a renewal for an existing membership Governance) Salt Spring Island BC r Other: ______V8K 2W3 Donations Office hours : Tues/Wed/Thurs 10 am - 3 pm In addition to my membership fee above, I have enclosed Phone: (250) 538-0318 my donation in the amount of: Fax: (250) 538-0319 Email: $50 _ $100 _ $250 _ $500 _ $1000_ $2500 _ $5000 _ [email protected] Other ______Ganges PO Box 722 Web site: Tax receipts will be provided for donations of $20 or more. Salt Spring Island BC www.saltspringconservancy.ca V8K 2W3

Printed on 18% recycled paper Winter 2008 15 Ganges PO Box 722 Salt Spring Island BC 40026325 V8K 2W3