Nanoose Streamkeepers

Stream Keepers The Log Artical March 2010

Since last month the rains have continued on and off with a big downpour last night

(15th Feb) Down in the estuary yesterday there was no water flowing over the banks but this morning it was just starting to slow down and flow back to the stream from the field as the tide dropped. We were down planting trees again; taking advantage of the nice weather we were all down to our T-shirts wishing we had brought deck chairs. The Red Wing Blackbirds were all chirping away and Ducks coming and going with a big Red Tailed Hawk cruising the estuary looking for lunch. Even though we just wanted to take in all this sun and nature we did manage to plant 38 Spruce Trees bringing the total for this year so far to 106. These trees all varied from 18inches to 4 ft tall. While planting I wandered into a small area we had planted several years ago and found 5 nice Spruce trees, nice and bushy with lots of healthy growth, if all the ones we planted do as good their will be a nice stand of Spruce in a couple of hundred years. In years past we took all kinds of advice ( Foresters, Biologists etc) as to what trees would do well in the estuary and over the past years we have planted hundreds of Fir and Cedar tree plugs with the vast majority falling to the Beaver, Deer, Mice and Voles chewing off the bark. The only ones that were left alone were the Spruce except for one Spruce planted way down in the Nootka Rose which a Buck has used to rub his antlers on, the tree survived and is still doing well. This area gets flooded with tidal waters during high tides and big rain events so salt tolerance may have something to do with how only the Spruce do well. We have a few Cedar trees growing but they have a tough time with the Deer and Beaver who seem to love chewing Cedar trees. We have a family of bank Beavers trying to survive but have to outwit the trapper who seems to make his appearance once the Beaver get too close to the bridge, usually just a small 1 to 2 foot dam to try and impound enough water to last over the summer months and is flushed out by the first big rain event of the fall.

We were up on Bonnel last week checking out the small school of Wild Coho fry that has been hanging out in this one small piece of off channel habitat. After one of the floods the pool now has a sand bottom from the back eddy depositing its load as the flood roared downstream. Hope fully any more over wintering fry will have found good refuge like this and survived the floods. It will be interesting to see how many Wild Chum return next cycle (4 years), we had a good return this fall with Wild Chum spawning all the way up to the power line. Next year they will be able to move as far as the falls due to the big logjam opening up during one of the floods. Usually just Wild Coho went above the Jam to spawn, next fall we will be able to see how many Wild Chum make it up their. Over the coming months we will be losing the only intact watersheds on a tributary of Snaw Naw As (Nanoose) Creek due to logging. This will affect the water quality for all downstream habitat and have a long-term effect on the overall health of Snaw new As Creek.

On the positive side over the past week all governments have decided to change the name of Georgia Strait to the Salish Sea. Many years ago we put the name Snaw Naw As Creek on the signs denoting Wild Salmon habitat on Nanoose Creek. We would like to put all the correct names of the creeks on the signs but are having a hard time finding out what the streams were called before colonization. So if anyone has any names on old maps or if any one can remember what they were called before they were named after the early settlers let us know and we will add them to the present names.