South Fraser Witness Trail gets off to wet start
Thursday, November 12, 2009
It was pouring rain on Saturday morning as I set out to start the Wilderness Committee’s first transit-accessible trail, the South Fraser Witness Trail below Surrey’s Fraser Heights neighbourhood. It seemed like the whole day was going to be a wash-out, but I felt I needed to go in case some hardy folk decided to brave the rain.
When I got off the C74 Fraser Heights bus at our meeting point, it was still raining hard, but the sky was lightening a bit. And, to my surprise, a small group of Surrey residents were waiting for me! We stepped off a residential street two blocks from the bus stop, and were almost instantly in a different world. We were enveloped in a misty rainforest where water dropped from the ferns and moss grew on the trees.
By the time we were done for the day, we had opened about two kilometers of trail near Surrey Bend along one of the most important pieces of salmon habitat on the lower Fraser. The area is also home to endangered wildlife such as the red-legged frog and pacific water shrew. Unbelievably, the federal and provincial governments plan to build a freeway on this exact route, at a time when many cities are tearing down their riverfront freeways which were seen as the wave of the future back in the 1950s.
We will be heading out to work on this trail again on November 29th, rain or shine. Contact me if you want to be involved in the South Fraser Witness Trail. The trail is a project of the Wilderness Committee and Surrey Environmental Partners.
Eric Doherty
Wilderness Committee Campaign Assistant
eric@wildernesscommittee.org
When I got off the C74 Fraser Heights bus at our meeting point, it was still raining hard, but the sky was lightening a bit. And, to my surprise, a small group of Surrey residents were waiting for me! We stepped off a residential street two blocks from the bus stop, and were almost instantly in a different world. We were enveloped in a misty rainforest where water dropped from the ferns and moss grew on the trees.
By the time we were done for the day, we had opened about two kilometers of trail near Surrey Bend along one of the most important pieces of salmon habitat on the lower Fraser. The area is also home to endangered wildlife such as the red-legged frog and pacific water shrew. Unbelievably, the federal and provincial governments plan to build a freeway on this exact route, at a time when many cities are tearing down their riverfront freeways which were seen as the wave of the future back in the 1950s.
We will be heading out to work on this trail again on November 29th, rain or shine. Contact me if you want to be involved in the South Fraser Witness Trail. The trail is a project of the Wilderness Committee and Surrey Environmental Partners.
Eric Doherty
Wilderness Committee Campaign Assistant
eric@wildernesscommittee.org