Have you ever watched a movie and thought to yourself, “Wow. That location looks awfully familiar…” Where Coquitlam’s Riverview Hospital is concerned, it probably happens a lot. Photo by Flickr/Jeff Hitchcock The Riverview Hospital was established in 1904 as a provincially owned psychiatric facility. There are 80 buildings, including five massive brick wards, that sit on 244 acres of land overlooking the Fraser River. At its peak, the hospital housed 4,300 patients.   The Riverview Hospital closed in 2012 and the newly constructed Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction o ..read more

Located in northern British Columbia, on the shores of Granby Bay in Observatory Inlet, lies the province’s largest ghost town – Anyox. This remote area is about 145 kilometres north of Prince Rupert and is only approachable by boat. Pictured, the main hydroelectric power plant in Anyox, British Columbia. Photo from iStock Around 1910, Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company (known as Granby Consolidated) started buying up land in this area and began constructing the town in 1912. Anyox was a booming town until 1936, best known for its mining operations of copper and other prec ..read more

 British Columbia is full of snakes. There, I said it. Some of you, mostly nature-minded people, will eagerly continue reading to learn something about one of the least understood—and most threatened—animal groups worldwide. Others will stop reading here, or at least want to. But some of those folks—maybe even most—will continue anyway for much the same reason we read news about airline crashes and tsunamis: our fascination with low-probability threats overrules our fear of them. At least from the safety of the couch.  The reality, of course, is that snakes aren’t really a threat exc ..read more

Tulips and lupins and sunflowers, oh my!   Lakeland Flowers, in Abbotsford, launched its summer of flowers on April 6 and there are acres upon acres of flowers to enjoy. First up is the Abbotsford Tulip Festival, which will close on May 12. You’ll find 35 acres of flowers – 28 acres of tulips, over 100 varieties, and the rest will be beautiful field flowers, offering a dazzling display of colour for visitors to enjoy. There are walking trails to enjoy, photos ops (such as a baby grand piano, canoes, swings, raised platforms and more) and visitors will find special varieties of tulips that ..read more

One thing I never tuck into my food pack is tea. I mean, really, there’s such a wide variety of plants in nature’s pantry that can be steeped into satisfying herbal teas (or tisanes, as they were known in the Old World) it just seems silly to tote imported tea into camp. And, unlike cultivated teas, wild ones are caffeine free, and the bonus deal is they’re free for the picking. As grandma used to say, “They’re good for treating whatever ails you.” Wild plants have been used for thousands of years by herbalists like my grandmother as medicinals for treating all kinds of everyday ailments, such ..read more

Bird enthusiasts of all ages love catching a glimpse of the small, speedy hummingbird. With their beautiful colours and wings that beat so fast they “hum,” these birds are fascinating to watch.   British Columbia sees five species of hummingbirds regularly: the Rufous, Anna’s, Calliope and black-chinned hummingbirds are found mostly west of the Rocky Mountains, while the ruby-throated hummingbird is found on the east side of the mountains and has been spotted, although rarely, further into BC’s interior. Anna’s hummingbird. Rufous and Anna’s hummingbirds can be found on southern Vancouve ..read more

Just west of Osoyoos, nestled within the desert landscape of the Eastern Similkameen Valley, you’ll find kłlilx’w, also known as Spotted Lake – a beautiful and unique body of water.   Spotted Lake is a mineral lake, rich in calcium, sodium sulphates and magnesium sulphate, among others. For most of the year, Spotted Lake looks like any other body of water while these minerals float just under the surface. But during the hot summer weather that the valley is known for, much of the water in the lake evaporates and the leftover minerals form spots. These spots will change size and shape over ..read more

Ravens and their close relatives, crows, are large and very vocal black birds that are likely familiar to us all. There are more than 40 species in the Corvid family in the world, but two or three are native to BC. In older texts, the American crow (Corvus brachyrthynchos) is found through the interior of the province, while the coast is home to the similar northwestern crow (Corvus caurinus). The two birds are so similar, in fact, that in 2020, the American Ornithological Society announced that the northwestern crow is no longer a species, but a subspecies of the American crow and so the numb ..read more

I grew up in Muskoka, Ont., where my family made maple syrup every spring. When I moved to northern BC years ago, I was disappointed to discover there were no sugar maples around my new home to tap for syrup making, or sugaring-off, as the age-old practice is commonly known in the east. But my disappointment was short-lived because after buying a bottle of locally produced birch syrup at a farmer’s market and doing some research, I discovered birch syrup is just as delicious as maple and, to my delight, I learned that it was made in the exact same manner, which was great because when I moved w ..read more

Starfish, also known as sea stars, can be found by the plenty along British Columbia’s coast. BC was the first place I ever had the chance to see a sea star and they are an incredible sea creature.   In 2013, a disease, called sea star wasting syndrome, struck along the Pacific coast from Mexico’s Baja California peninsula to Alaska, decimating millions of sea stars. Sea stars are slowly making a comeback, but the sunflower sea star, in particular, was hit hard and scientists are pushing for this species to be listed as endangered so more can be done to bring the species back from the bri ..read more