The Revelstoke Forestry Museum’s Riverside Forest Walk is nearly complete and the trail is ready for visitors.
Beginning at the Forestry Museum and leading down to the lower property, the walk is meant to be accessible for families and seniors and also educational.
“My real passion and goal is public education on forestry,” said Barb Wadey, of the Forestry Museum. “I would like by the time that you do the whole thing with the signs that we put up that you learn about local forestry and issues.”
As well as preserving the history of forestry in the area, the museum is also a discovery centre and Wadey hopes to engage with people about current forestry topics.
With funding from the Columbia Basin Trust’s recreation infrastructure grant, the museum hired Little Big Works to build the trails.
Funnily enough, they are made of sand, as that was the material readily available in the area. Wadey said they were surprised but that it also accounts for why the trees fall down in the area.
In February when Wadey went down to the site to take photos, she discovered that there was a lot of windfall from winter storms.
“There was so much blow down on the property that we actually couldn’t continue without logging it,” Wadey said.
With the help of the Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation and Schiller Logging, they cleared the blow down to prepare the site.
Though sad in a way, Wadey said the blow down area provides another educational opportunity, as it is a natural part of the life cycle of a forest.
The next part of the project is to install interpretive signs. Wadey said they plan to identify different species, visible diseases that the vegetation might have, as well as other interesting facts about the vegetation, land and animals.
There is no access to the river from the walk, but the views are lovely and with snow fast encroaching on the hiking trails in the mountains, Wadey hopes that these trails will keep people out and about in the shoulder season.
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jocelyn.doll@revelstokereview.com
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