Broken Fence

Along Cougar Creek, up on the side of the hill is a pathway for hikers. Below that a rail track along which trains come at a remarkable and sometimes surprising speed. Then there is a boggy section, the creek itself and another then walkway and last a fence. There is also the highway that cuts through the area crossing the Fraser River, elevated at a tremendous hight. The fence is there to protect the industrial area under the highway but itches now breached in so many places by fallen trees and here and there accidentally backed over by trucks being backed up to the edge of the greenway to be put into storage that is seems to be more symbolic than useful. Underneath all of this is the usual pipeline, here a large city sewage pipe, aromatic in the worse way. The real reason any of these trees are here, or the hiking paths and creek survive, is that the sewage pipe is there. This ribbon of trees, birds, beavers (always flooding the bog by blocking the creek), ducks, heron and I guess once some cougars, is that this sewage pipe. Anywhere within the city limits I find nature seemingly winning a struggle against human occupation it usually is due to a sewerage pipe, oil pipeline or high pressure gas line buried under a few feet of dirt. I wish for once a greenways seemed to be there because we realised in time we needed a greenway.

Winter in Burn's Bog

The bog, when frozen, opens up. Its interior becomes visible, its skeletal system, clear. Water that normally runs for one day and disappears the next freezes, yet the movement of the water is traced in its odd shapes and layers of frozen surfaces. Some plants are frozen inside the ice, like bugs in amber. Their colour remains bright and life like. Most of it will thaw and just go on with what it was doing before the sudden freeze. Birds fill the lower branches of the bushes and brambles, searching for seeds. They call back and forth. I don’t know if they are sharing what they found or warning others to stay away. The low winter sun casts shadows which in the spring are never disappear. It reminds you that we are moving, not the sun. We’ve got it all wrong.

Pathway Through the Bog in Winter.

The small songbirds flutter through the underbrush looking for seeds. The beavers seem to be active, but are no where to be seen. Still, their activity is everywhere, a tree here, there, they are up to something besides sleeping.

The Dead Tree Tells Its Story

Cold has frozen the creek and floods from the beaver dams, along with the snow, have flattened the grass. Things usually hidden in the undergrowth are seen in the winter, and they tell winter tales. Most of the fallen trees still have large amounts of soil attached to their roots, but this one has little left other than the skeleton. Even in death it seems to have suffered.

The Fence That Divides Purposes

This image is from a more recent project focused on a small bit of land, on the map called a “nature reserve,” which lies between residential housing and a fairly heavily industrialised area. A fence divides these two, broken in many places and overgrown by saplings that have disrupted its order and continuity. Besides the pathway, creek and fence running through this “natural” area is a freight line. Trains cross the creek, and loudly rumble through the bog and adjacent woodlands. There is no warning except signs telling you not to cross the tracks even though the pathway is clearly marked with steps and elevated boardwalk. An area of many contradictions.

The Garden in Winter 2023