Some days ago, members of the Bowen Island Conservancy and a representative of the Islands Trust Fund, the two parties which will manage the new nature reserve for Bowen, noticed that the use of ATVs and other four-by-four vehicles has resulted in erosion of trails and creeks. This erosion will deposit large amounts of silt, which will, in turn, smother all life in the creek.

There are many reasons for the fen’s reserve status. It lies within the only undeveloped water shed (Huszar Creek) in the Lower Mainland. The fen stores a large amount of water which is slowly released during the dry season keeping Huszar Creek from drying-up. The deep (up to three metres) Sphagnum moss serves as a colossal carbon sink. The varied fauna and flora are of great interest to many. It is a truly magical place. [continue]

What interests me about this article is that it explains exactly what impacts those vehicles will have. I imagine bicycles could cause similar damage, yes?

So this helps me to understand just why cyclists are asked not to bicycle in Gabriola’s Elder Cedar Nature Reserve (S’ul-hween X’pey) on Gabriola.

Is it new? Did GaLTT do it?

It’s changed since some industrious mountain bikers have arrived on the scene. They chop through logs like this one, and often create work-around routes for easier riding past obstacles.

Those riders have been very busy this winter. Some of those new routes are of the every plant ripped out of the ground variety.

Update/related post: And the other cyclists, they do this.

Less than a week later at their Strategic Planning Workshop, GaLTT announced the imminent signing of our second trail licence (still in the lawyers’ offices!), this time with landowner Sally Robinson.

The public access trail will cross her 22-acre property off the west side of Cooper Road, connecting to Thompson Road and to Islands View Drive. Peirce said that work on clearing the trail will begin almost immediately. It will loop around a truly amazing maple tree — Ms. Robinson says the improved trail will allow her to visit the maple, which she has not been able to view for several years.

This is fantastic news. I’m looking forward to visiting that maple tree, too.

• We are close to completing our drive for public-access trails from Drumbeg to Descanso, and our work breaking new trails and maintaining the old ones continues.
• We have played a vigorous role in the acquisition and management of several major Regional and Community parks and conservation areas on Gabriola.
• We have had some major successes in clearing invasive plants from our public areas (though this work must be on-going).
• We have obtained the legal ability to hold covenants and issue trail licences, initiatives that help us enlarge the amount of protected land on the island and improve public trail access.

Tomorrow morning (Saturday, October 22, 2011) GALTT is having a five-to-10-year Strategic Planning Workshop at the Community Hall. You might think of attending if you value trail access on Gabriola, and all the work GALTT does for us.

Tuesday, October 18 at 1pm, GaLTT will sign its first trail licence agreement

GaLTT will celebrate the signing of its first trail licence agreement, allowing public access on a trail through privately held forest land off Barrett Road. GaLTT and the Cornish family will sign the agreement at the trailhead, which is on the left just before the long hill down Barrett Road.

Thank you, Cornish family. And thank you, GaLTT.

Update: more details! GaLTT has revised their website; the bit about this licence includes a photo and now says:

On October 18, GaLTT signed its first trail licence agreement with Gabriola landowners Diane and Bill Cornish, shown here with President John Peirce.

The agreement allows public access (on foot, bike or horse) through private land on a beautiful forested trail connecting Barrett Road to Rollo Park. GaLTT will be responsible for maintaining the trail.

Meanwhile, Nick Doe has published his own Trail Map of the 707 Community Park (.pdf) It is far more fun and interesting than any official thing will ever be. Go take a look!

Perhaps you’d like to let people wander along that trail. Maybe your trail provides access to the beach or forest for neighbours who would have to take huge detours to get to those places if not for your handy trail. Or maybe it’s key to a whole network of Gabriola trails.

Or maybe there isn’t a trail, but you’d like to make one to help out your neighbours.

All well and good, but what about liability? Liability concerns prompt all sorts of people to put up ‘no trespassing’ signs, and maybe you’re leaning that way. You don’t want to get sued if some silly person trips and falls on your trail, after all.

Now there’s an option that will let you provide that trail while not worrying about liability insurance for it. Here are some of the details from the Gabriola Land and Trails Trust newsletter:

GaLTT has arranged liability insurance coverage with its insurer for private trail licences (legal agreements allowing the public to use a specified trail across private land). This insurance removes the liability risk for landowners who are willing to offer the use of a trail to the public by using GaLTT as the holder of the trail licence. This allows us much more flecibility in achieving connectivity between different trail systems on the isand. (…)

Our preferred goal in securing private trail licences is to have them accessible to pedestrians and bicycles and horses, as well as to have them published on our annual trail map. However, if a particular landowner wishes to restrict use of the trail across their land or to ask us not to put it on a public map, we are certainly willing to discuss honouring such constraints.

Currently we have a number of situations where we would like to negotiate private trail licences. Once we put together the proper legal documentation we will open discussions with the relevant landowners.

(View full .pdf version of newsletter here.)

If this sort of scheme sounds right for your trail, GaLTT would like to hear from you.

I thought I’d mention it here in case the tree-moving trail angels feel like doing something about it.

Update, March 22nd: all sorted out! See, now it’s like this:

The mystery is now solved: the triskele’s creator came across the blog post, and sent this note:

Hi noticed the comments on this post and had to laugh. Very creative guessing. Sorry no Irish Air Corps, just me doing a shamanic ceremony. The labrynth is walked from the centre into each circle. The circle closest in the photo is the spiral of the past, the one next to it the spiral of the present, and the one alone at the top is the spiral of the future. You walk it as a walking meditation and see what awarenesses you glean.

(Published with the writer’s permission.)

Isn’t that fascinating? Thank you, triskele-maker, for sharing your story.

You might remember that I found a poinsettia plant in the Gabriola forest last year, but it was dead when I came across it.

I’ve had a feeling that another poinsettia would turn up, and the leaf in the stream was fresh. Further along the trail, another pink leaf lay under some salal. And a bit further still, here’s what we saw:

It’s just by the cedar tree with the antlers.

I’m guessing that I just missed the Placer of Poinsettias, because these plants wilt pretty quickly in the cold.

Extra points if you get lost a bit and wind up on a longer walk than you’d planned.

(See also: Gabriola’s forest monster and Cladonia creature.)

But what do you know? Somebody has fished out that tire, and used is as a trailmarker here.

There are several deer skulls in use as trailmarkers on Gabriola. (These ones, those ones, and some others, too.) What’s odd about this deer skull is that the antlers have been sawn off. Why would anybody do that?

And then snow comes, and I can see where the deer have been. It’s visual coding for the smell-impaired. I think I rise somewhat in dog’s estimation when she realizes that we are following deer trails on purpose, and — at last! — I know where they are.

Either that or I have a rich fantasy life.

I was surprised today to find a gate at the end of King Street, and a No Trespassing sign. Yet, to the left of the gate, the access trail seems welcoming enoughto pedestrians.

Has this land recently changed hands? Is something planned for it? Does the absence of a fence (and the fact that the welcoming trail entrance remains) mean that hikers are still welcome, in spite of the sign?

O Gabriola People Who Know, please tell me.

It’s not far from the forest vase.

I think it was February when I first spotted this plant – leaves wilted, flowers no longer red. I’m guessing somebody left it in the forest at Christmas-time, but who? And why?

You know what I missed at Christmas and what else I missed at Christmas in the Elder Cedar Nature Reserve. Now I can add the poinsettia to the list of things I found too late. THIS December I’ll be much more observant, hoping to notice Christmas ornaments in the Gabriola woods – and any poinsettias – while they’re in season.

Who took a saw into the Gabriola forest in order to do this?

It’s a handy thing to know if you’re trying to follow mostly-overgrown trails.

Well. Now I’ve found the next tree in the series, I guess – tree number three. It’s 420 metres from the tree number two, and not on a trail… unless you count an old logging road that is overgrown enough to be nearly obliterated.

Are there more? Where’s tree number one? Who marked these trees — and when and why?

In case you haven’t guessed, he’s a ceramic frog. The Elder Cedar seems to sprout things like this from time to time. We’ve seen gnomes, Christmas ornaments, and bells. What next?