Deertrails Naturalist Program in the Clearwater River Valley

NEWS RELEASE

ANNOUNCING TLC’S SECOND DEERTRAILS NATURALIST PROGRAM SESSIONS IN 2020

Participants to learn from seasoned naturalists in the Clearwater River Valley

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 2, 2020

Clearwater, BC –The Land Conservancy of B.C. (TLC) is pleased to announce that the second session of the Deertrails Naturalist Program will explore the transition of the Clearwater River Valley to Autumn: attend to the uprising of mushrooms, the blushing of leaves, and the cool exhalations of blue forest shadow. An intergenerational, place-based learning opportunity designed to facilitate the transfer of naturalist knowledge, both scientific and traditional, TLC launched the Deertrails Naturalist Program in 2019 with an inaugural session in Clearwater.

From August 30 to September 6, 2020, in the Clearwater River Valley, naturalist participants will explore a range of habitats including following the paths of the deer, pausing awhile in their places of sanctuary and places of power.  Participants will learn about and deepen their connection to the natural world from seasoned naturalists and teachers Lyn Baldwin (ecologist and artist), Maleea Acker (poet and teacher) and Trevor Goward (lichenologist and place-based naturalist), with special guest instructor Nancy Turner (ethnobiologist and botanist). Nancy Flood (ornithologist and ecologist) will make a cameo appearance.  Aspiring naturalists will develop a wide array of skills needed to steward local natural places, educate the public and new naturalists, engage in research and inform conservation efforts. The program fees are $695 per person and include meals and basic accommodations.

“This program sparked a fire within me that I didn’t even know existed. Every second of the time that I got to spend in Wells Grey felt like magic, full of extravagant landscapes, and compelling, passionate souls,” said 2019 Deertrails Naturalist Program participant Zoey. “The safe spaces that were created during our week together allowed for me to learn and grow exponentially. The community that was fostered in such a small amount of time truly showed me the power of knowledge, passion, compassion, and intention.”

Aspiring naturalists can apply online on TLC’s website at www.conservancy.bc.ca.  Deadline for applications is 11:59 p.m. on Monday, May 4, 2020.

Thanks to an endowment fund with the Victoria Foundation, bursaries are available for participants. For more details regarding the Deertrails Naturalist Program please view the program backgrounder or contact TLC at (250) 479-8053 or admin@conservancy.bc.ca.

The Land Conservancy of British Columbia (TLC) is a non-profit, charitable Land Trust working throughout British Columbia. TLC’s primary mandate is to benefit the community by protecting habitat for natural communities of plants and animals. Founded in 1997, TLC is membership-based and governed by an elected, volunteer Board of Directors.  TLC relies on a strong membership and volunteer base to help maintain its operations.

Lyn Baldwin (instructor) is an award-winning teacher, artist-naturalist and ecologist who calls the sagebrush-steppe and coniferous forests of the South Thompson Valley home. Working from the belief that restoring the world must include our own re-storying within it, Lyn uses the practice of illustrated field journaling to help re-imagine her relationship with home and community, place and dwelling. Lyn has shared the stories, expressed in image and text, that result from this practice in art galleries and science museum, and within the pages of journals such as The Goose, Terrain.org and The Journal of Natural History Education and Experience. Through a series of hands-on field journaling exercises completed in the field, Lyn will help participants transform the land’s line and shadow, its poetry and science, into meaningful lessons for their own lives.

Maleea Acker (instructor) is the author of two poetry collections, The Reflecting Pool and Air-Proof Green (Pedlar 2009, 2013), and the non-fiction book Gardens Aflame: Garry Oak Meadows of BC’s South Coast (New Star Books, 2012). She has 20 years experience as an interpretive writer, journalist, writer and teacher, creating materials that allow both children and adults to learn more about nature and culture. As a freelance journalist, she thrives on work that helps to nurture natural history and cultural heritage, through translation of science into story. She teaches Human Geography and Canadian Studies at the University of Victoria, where she is a PhD candidate in Geopoetics. She also teaches Literature and Writing at Camosun College.

Nancy Turner (instructor) is an ethnobotanist, Professor Emeritus and former Hakai Professor in Ethnoecology with the School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria. She has worked with First Nations elders and cultural specialists in northwestern North America for over 50 years, helping to document, retain and promote their traditional knowledge of plants and environments, including Indigenous foods, materials and traditional medicines. Her two-volume book, Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America represents an integration of her long term research. She has authored or co-authored/co-edited over 20 other books, including: Plants of Haida Gwaii; The Earth’s Blanket; “Keeping it Living”: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America (with Doug Deur); Saanich Ethnobotany: Culturally Important Plants of the WSÁNEC’ People (with Richard Hebda), and Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples, and over 135 book chapters and papers. She has received a number of awards for her work, including membership in Order of British Columbia (1999) and the Order of Canada (2009), and honorary degrees from VIU, UBC, UNBC and SFU.

Trevor Goward (instructor) is an accomplished field naturalist, lichenologist and self-appointed inspector of deer trails. He’s also author/co-author of more than 120 scientific papers, scores of popular pieces, and four books. When not gardening or wandering/pondering the wilds of his home valley in south-central British Columbia, Trevor engages in numerous seemingly random pursuits and thought experiments including designer living, land apprenticeship, naturalist mentorship, wilderness advocacy, systems theory, poetic ecology, the mythic universe of J.R.R. Tolkien, and (through this last) a stewardship practice he calls elven work. Lately he has woven these and other preoccupations into his Naturalists of the Middle Way teachings, grounded in the perception that seasoned naturalists, together with their indigenous counterparts, must sooner or later take on a crucial cultural role as “ambassadors to the wild.” Trevor’s long apprenticeship to this calling is ably assisted by Purple, his far-seeing canine companion.

Nancy Flood (cameo) is an award-winning teacher—of a diversity of subjects, from general biology to ecology, ornithology and biostatistics (her favourite). She has studied a variety of bird species, in locales from the arctic to the subtropics and lots of places in between. She has authored and/or co-authored over 50 scientific papers and articles in the popular press, chapters in about 20 in text books, and even a slim book on North American orioles—and has edited or reviewed those same sorts of writings. She is thus a jack of many trades, but a master of none. Currently, she teaches at TRU, where is she is co-chair of the Department of Biological Sciences. She has lived in Kamloops for almost 30 years, where she helped raise two wonderful young adults, and has been active in various groups related to nature and environment, including the Kamloops Naturalist Club, of which she is currently president.

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Media contact

Cathy Armstrong
TLC Executive Director
Local: (250) 479-8053
Toll free: 1-877-485-2422
carmstrong@conservancy.bc.ca