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Field Notes

I did not set out to swim that afternoon. I was following the tide line in sandals and shorts when the incoming water slipped around my ankles—astonishingly warm for early May, almost as warm as Georgia Strait. The invitation was impossible to ignore. Shoes off, clothes abandoned above the tide, I waded in. The water held a small world I had never seen here before. Several translucent hydrozoans from the genus Euphyssa pulsed and curled through the shallows, their vivid pink centres suspended inside bodies so clear they seemed drawn in light. They moved like tiny fairies, folding and unfurling in the current. Around them drifted thousands of delicate white forms, each no larger than a feather. They looked alive at first. Later, photographs and a little research revealed them to be barnacle moults: cast-off exoskeletons, complete with the feathery cirri barnacles use to gather food from moving water. For years I have walked, worked, snorkelled and watched this bay, and I still cannot predict what it will offer. A familiar shoreline can change completely with one tide, one season, or one decision to step into the water. On May 6, the estuary was warm enough to swim and full of almost invisible lives. I went in expecting nothing more than cold water and came out having danced with pink fairies.

Pink Fairies in the May Tide

A shoreline walk became an impromptu swim through warm spring water, tiny hydrozoans and a blizzard of barnacle moults.

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Some restoration work begins with planting. This work began with thick gloves, preventative tetanus shots, and the understanding that nobody visiting the bay was leaving empty-handed. Across the upper gravelly estuary and the lower mudflats, old metal was everywhere. Heavy cable ran through the substrate in rusted loops and broken lengths—jagged, sharp, and extraordinarily good at finding an unprotected hand or boot. Much of it had likely remained since the industrial operations that once occupied the bay. On the mudflats, every piece seemed anchored in a dark, very fragrant cultural layer of sediment, contaminated muck, glass, and other refuse. Pulling one length of cable often revealed another. Tree Island Yogurt kindly donated a large box of heavy five-mil poly bags, perfectly suited to this deeply unglamorous task. Each could safely hold roughly twenty pounds of metal, muck, and glass without being immediately defeated by the sharp edges. Larger pieces went into black totes or were wrapped in poly sheeting. The loads left the bay aboard Wine Time or Gunnar’s Runner, then went either to metal recyclers in Campbell River or to an ocean-cleanup facility in the Comox Valley. The work depended on many hands: friends, neighbours, visitors, and anyone cheerfully “voluntold” that coming out meant filling at least one bag to take home. That rule spread the load and saved our backs. It was dirty, stinky, occasionally menacing work—but every cable lifted from the mud made the shoreline safer. The goal is larger than one cleanup day. We hope that, as the industrial debris disappears and the estuary continues to recover, biodiversity will keep returning to the bay. Perhaps one day, future generations will be able to walk this shoreline barefoot without wondering what sharp piece of the past is buried beneath them.

Pulling the Past from the Mud

Across the upper gravel shore and lower mudflats, volunteers removed decades of cable, glass and industrial debris—one stubborn, twenty-pound bag at a time.

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