Tests are important. They allow us to assess progress and gauge preparedness. Some of us still remember tests from school. (And some of us, who were chronically unprepared, may not have the fondest memories of those tests.) But what’s better than the feeling you get when you pass a test …
It’s fun to make new friends. They offer new perspectives and provide new information. They also present challenges and opportunity. Of course, new friends don’t replace old friends. We at Beaufort Watershed Stewards (BWS) have no plans to abandon our old friends, Wilfred, Cowie, Mud Bay, Hart, and Waterloo but …
You can’t see the specific conductivity of water but you can measure it. Can you taste it? Our YSI meter measures specific conductivity and gives us a precise number (microSiemens per centimetre). Specific Conductivity is useful as an indication of mineral content. Are there other ways to determine specific conductivity? …
For the Beaufort Watershed Stewards it is our ambitions that have grown the most in the past several months. Stream sampling, our first love, is our core activity. It’s been a couple of years since those heady, early days when we were setting up the program and making lots of …
Change is inevitable. Sometimes it is sudden and unexpected. No one saw a pandemic coming a year ago. Other times, change is the result of hard work and intention. Three years ago there was precious little information on the health of our local creeks. Now we have rich data sets …
Wasps are an occupational hazard for the Beaufort Watershed Stewards. Not so much because we run into them when we’re sampling but rather because they’re attracted to our beer cans. But before you form a mental picture of a tipsy group of citizen scientists thrashing drunkenly through the bush, let …
Where were you in 1963? I was 9 years old. And despite being an avid reader who was fascinated by stories of travellers and exotic locales, I had never heard of a place called Fanny Bay. But the folks in Qualicum knew of Fanny Bay. In December of that year, …
How much is a frog worth? The little Northern Red-Legged frog that plopped into the water as we approached Hart Creek for our weekly water sampling was certainly a valuable addition to our morning. Growing up on the edges of suburbia my days were often spent catching frogs and snakes …
It’s been a good year for strawberries. And now the raspberries are demanding attention. The ruby red flashes among the leaves remind us we need to get serious about picking them. And the blueberries are beginning to live up to their name, so it won’t be long before they’re ready …
During recent summer months well levels have been lower than previous years. Some are going dry. This is not unprecedented. There were similar problems in 2015. Perhaps the time has come to take stock of how we use this resource we call water. The first thing to realize is that …
