BWS doesn’t have an office. We do our indoor stuff, like meetings and such, at each other’s houses. Our monthly meetings, thanks to the kind support of SPID (Ships Point Improvement District) are at the firefighters training hall. Many meetings are on Zoom and we sometimes meet at the FBI. …
One of the main BWS activities is gathering data. We’ve been gathering data for over seven years. We’ve got tons of it, piled up in boxes, tucked away on closet shelves, sealed in jars in the back of the fridge. I accidentally kicked a bucket of data over in the …
I spent the third week of September peering into people’s wells in Fanny Bay. This was part of our most recent collaboration with researchers from the University of Victoria’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences. In the past, we helped them look at rock layers beneath the surface. This time …
Last month I got an email from a neighbour telling me his old, unused well had dried up a month earlier than it did last year. I talked to another neighbour in Fanny Bay who said their well had gone dry for the first time in over thirty years. There …
One might think that, as watershed stewards, our stock in trade would be water. But really, there’s not much we can do about water. We can’t make more of it. That’s the job of nature. We can’t manage it. That’s the job of the community, the Regional District, the Province, …
There’s something that’s been bugging us. We know quite a bit about our streams. We regularly measure their temperature, turbidity, specific conductance, pH, and oxygen content. When we’re sampling, we take note of frogs or salamanders that cross our path and birds that depend on the creeks for food (a …
BWS has a doctor on our board of directors. We also have a nurse. And she is the same person. Lynne Ray holds a Doctorate in Nursing degree from the University of Washington. If you know Lynne, this may not come as a shock. She is astute and radiates competence. …
This winter I’ve gotten into the morbid habit of checking the outside temperature every morning. I seem to have lost my tolerance for cold. Even the difference between zero and two degrees feels significant. I look forward to the double digits of spring and the balmy days of summer. Salmon, …
There are few things as magical as drilling holes in solid rock. The bit spins and the drill pounds and a pile of fine grey powder grows around the hole. Don’t inhale! When the hole is deep enough, after only a minute or so, you can install a fender washer …
Eight years ago, we were all a little worried. The Fanny Bay Inn was changing ownership. The FBI is a local institution with a far-flung reputation. When we were still living in Seattle, we would tell people that we were moving to a tiny community called Fanny Bay on Vancouver …
