For most of my life, grasslands have been a mystery. Hiking with my family through the open meadows and forests of the Thompson valley I yearned for the tight-knit forest of the coast that dripped moisture off cedar boughs into the thirsty fronds of fern.
Trees meant shade, pristine wilderness, and their forest density offered a welcome expectation into the unknown. With ancient evergreens and ceilings of branched darkness, I was in my true habitat. But listen, I have been converted.
For the past week I poured over the heat and beauty of the Columbia Basin grasslands. They are intricate and wise. The closer you look the more you discover. Skirting through a healthy grassland, a puff of fleshy bitterroot will draw you ground-ward, tufts of bluebunch wheatgrass appear to erupt from the ground like a muted prairie firework, and the yolk-coloured balsamroot shakes its roughened leaves with dry grassland wind.
Like most fragile ecosystems, grasslands are endangered – they are more threatened than old-growth forests. Within British Columbia grasslands account for less than one percent of our provincial land cover. In the West Kootenay we have a small, yet extremely important, selection of grasslands.
Syringa Provincial Park has several trails that rise through an open grassland forest. The area has recently undergone ecological restoration and the newly spacious forest may allow native grassland species to re-root and shoot. Fort Shepherd Conservancy Area (located 6 km south of Trail) is another grassland worth visiting. This property is owned by The Land Conservancy and has both historical and ecological value. If you do visit, please respect the signs!
There are several books I suggest reading that are inspired by grasslands. Landscapes of the Interior and The Wheatgrass Mechanism are written by the author and ecologist Don Gayton.
If you fall head over heels with taxonomy and would like to key out grasses, visit www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/grasses/. This is a fantastic resource that has been prepared by Valerie Huff, grassland ecologist.
This article was written by Emily Nilsen, TLC’s Terrestrial Stewardship Advisor in the Kootenay Region, and appeared in the Nelson Express newspaper on the importance of protecting habitat for plants, animals and natural communities. If you would like more information, please don’t hesitate to contact Nilsen at enilsen@conservancy.bc.ca or 250-354-7345.
