Forest connections

Discovering an alliance and affiliation with nature. Taking photos through the iNaturalist app on the smartphone, to immerse an outdoor, nature-loving invigorating afternoon. An idyllic way to find a connection in the forest, to see the liason and relation between trees and understorey, to find the kinship between in this semi-wilderness area, and explore nature’s forest habitat. Experience a care-free healthful, informal nature relationship.

Eventbrite Registration Sunday Sep 26, 2021 at 2:00 pm Nature Connect Bio-Blitz and Forest Walk meet at Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area GPS 52.1012839, -106.749158 meet at the SW Off Leash Recreation Area Just in time for World Environmental Health Day, check out the forest health today.

National Forest Week The last full week of September. Maple Leaf Day the Wednesday of that week.

This program for National Forest Week is brought to you by the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas an environmental non-profit charity that was created to preserve and restore the 326-acre Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and the 148-acre George Genereux Urban Regional Park. Our work reinforces the 1979 City Council decision designating these afforestation areas on the western fringe of Saskatoon to “be preserved in perpetuity.” They are important habitat for wildlife as well as semi-wild public spaces for recreation and nature immersion. The larger of these two areas is named after Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982), who has been called the “first global conservationist” and in recognition of this he was made the first Honorary Life Member of the World Wildlife Fund in 1969. A British forester who also homesteaded and studied in Saskatoon, he dedicated his entire life unfailingly to the preservation and planting of trees and forests.

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  Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata)

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  Autumn picture of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas supported by the non profit group Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. Please join now, like, support, share.

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  The Trembling Aspen is also referred to as the Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx) Autumn colour of foliage CC 3 Walter Siegmund

This is one session in a week long series of events celebrating National Forest Week with a theme – “Our Forests – Continually Giving”

Sat. Sept 18 7:00 Saskatoon’s Wildlife—the real night life in Saskatoon! Saskatoon’s trail cams reveal who’s who. 

Sept 19 2:00 Nature Snapshot in Time

Sun Sep. 19 2:00 Forestry Farm Walking Tour

Canada-wide CLS environmental education program explores historical time lines Sun. Sep 19 7:00

Mon Sept 20 2:00 Flag raising Ceremony at City Hall – National Forest Week

Mon Sept 20 7:00 The Urban Forest and Climate Change

During National Forest Week enjoy the self-guided SOS Tree Tour of unique trees in our fair city!

Tues Sept 21 7:00  Dr. Colin Laroque Shelterbelts SB- Decision Support System and Agroforestry

Wed. Sept 22 Maple Leaf Day 7:00 National Healing Forests Truth and Reconciliation

Thurs Sept 23 7:00 Urban forests and greenspaces enhance Saskatoon’s quality of life.

Fri Sept Sep 24 at 7:00 pm When and Where did you see What?!?

Sat Sept 25 7:00 PaRx in Saskatchewan, PaRx, Canada’s First National Prescription Program has officially arrived in Saskatchewan!

Sunday Sunday Sep 26 at 2:00 Forest connections and guided walk

Sunday Sep 26, 2021 at 7:00 pm Our Forests.  Are They Alive?

For directions as to how to drive to “George Genereux” Urban Regional Park

For directions on how to drive to Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

For more information:

Blairmore Sector Plan Report; planning for the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area, George Genereux Urban Regional Park and West Swale and areas around them inside of Saskatoon city limits

NEW P4G District Official Community Plan

Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′

Addresses:

Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A

Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A

S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A

NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063

Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot

Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com

Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map

Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)?with map

Pinterest richardstbarbeb

Blogger: FriendsAfforestation

Tumblr friendsafforestation.tumblr.comFacebook Group Page: Users of the George Genereux Urban Regional Park

Facebook: StBarbeBaker Afforestation Area

Facebook for the non profit Charity Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. FriendsAreas

Facebook group page : Users of the St Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

Facebook: South West OLRA

Reddit: FriendsAfforestation

Twitter: St Barbe Baker Charity Twitter:FriendsAreas

Mix: friendsareas

YouTube

Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail / e-transfers )

Donate your old vehicle, here’s how!  

Support using Canada Helps

Support via a recycling bottle donation

United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

• Use the UN Decade’s Visual Identity 
• Make it your own
• Spread the word about the UN Decade 
• Let’s Bring Back Forests
• Let’s Green Our Cities

““Be like a tree in pursuit of your cause. Stand firm, grip hard, thrust upward. Bend to the winds of heaven..”

Richard St. Barbe Baker

Our Forests. Are They Alive?

Eventbrite Registration Sunday Sep 26, 2021 at 7:00 pm Our Forests.  Are They Alive?

Seeing, and orienting towards a holistic experience, tapping into intuition, exploring how forests think, delving into the heart of the forest.

Our Forests. Are They Alive?

Our Forests.  Are They Alive? Just in time for World Environment Health Day. Sylvan dreaming and knowing, the secret life of trees, and forests. Multiple ways to connect and discover ecological non-dualism with revelations by Charles Eisenstein, Geneen Marie Haugen, Sadghuru, Suzanne Simard, Arts and Wildwoods. Immersing in the exploratory steps of semiosis, ecological ethics and cosmic diplomacy.

“I approach God’s Creation, this beautiful Earth. The ancients believed that the Earth was a sentient being and felt the behaviour of mankind upon it.” said Richard St. Barbe Baker, ” As we have no proof to the contrary, it might be as well for responsible people to accept this point of view and behave accordingly.

Eventbrite Registration Sunday Sep 26, 2021 at 7:00 pm Our Forests.  Are They Alive?

National Forest Week The last full week of September. Maple Leaf Day the Wednesday of that week.

The Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas are proud to bring to you this series of events for National Forest Week Theme “Our forests – Continually giving” Saturday September 18, 2021 to Sunday September 26, 2021 Maple Leaf Day September 22, 2021 This is one session in a weeklong series of webinars.

This program for National Forest Week is brought to you by the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas an environmental non-profit charity that was created to preserve and restore the 326-acre Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and the 148-acre George Genereux Urban Regional Park. Our work reinforces the 1979 City Council decision designating these afforestation areas on the western fringe of Saskatoon to “be preserved in perpetuity.” They are important habitat for wildlife as well as semi-wild public spaces for recreation and nature immersion. The larger of these two areas is named after Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982), who has been called the “first global conservationist” and in recognition of this he was made the first Honorary Life Member of the World Wildlife Fund in 1969. A British forester who also homesteaded and studied in Saskatoon, he dedicated his entire life unfailingly to the preservation and planting of trees and forests.

This is one session in a week long series of events celebrating National Forest Week with a theme – “Our Forests – Continually Giving”

Sat. Sept 18 7:00 Saskatoon’s Wildlife—the real night life in Saskatoon! Saskatoon’s trail cams reveal who’s who. 

Sept 19 2:00 Nature Snapshot in Time

Sun Sep. 19 2:00 Forestry Farm Walking Tour

Canada-wide CLS environmental education program explores historical time lines Sun. Sep 19 7:00

Mon Sept 20 2:00 Flag raising Ceremony at City Hall – National Forest Week

Mon Sept 20 7:00 The Urban Forest and Climate Change

During National Forest Week enjoy the self-guided SOS Tree Tour of unique trees in our fair city!

Tues Sept 21 7:00  Dr. Colin Laroque Shelterbelts SB- Decision Support System and Agroforestry

Wed. Sept 22 Maple Leaf Day 7:00 National Healing Forests Truth and Reconciliation

Thurs Sept 23 7:00 Urban forests and greenspaces enhance Saskatoon’s quality of life.

Fri Sept Sep 24 at 7:00 pm When and Where did you see What?!?

Sat Sept 25 7:00 PaRx in Saskatchewan, PaRx, Canada’s First National Prescription Program has officially arrived in Saskatchewan!

Sunday Sunday Sep 26 at 2:00 Forest connections and guided walk

Sunday Sep 26, 2021 at 7:00 pm Our Forests.  Are They Alive?

For directions as to how to drive to “George Genereux” Urban Regional Park

For directions on how to drive to Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

For more information:

Blairmore Sector Plan Report; planning for the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area, George Genereux Urban Regional Park and West Swale and areas around them inside of Saskatoon city limits

NEW P4G District Official Community Plan

Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′

Addresses:

Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A

Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A

S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A

NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063

Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot

Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com

Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map

Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)?with map

Pinterest richardstbarbeb

Blogger: FriendsAfforestation

Tumblr friendsafforestation.tumblr.comFacebook Group Page: Users of the George Genereux Urban Regional Park

Facebook: StBarbeBaker Afforestation Area

Facebook for the non profit Charity Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. FriendsAreas

Facebook group page : Users of the St Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

Facebook: South West OLRA

Reddit: FriendsAfforestation

Twitter: St Barbe Baker Charity Twitter:FriendsAreas

Mix: friendsareas

YouTube

Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail / e-transfers )

Donate your old vehicle, here’s how!  

Support using Canada Helps

Support via a recycling bottle donation

United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

• Use the UN Decade’s Visual Identity 
• Make it your own
• Spread the word about the UN Decade 
• Let’s Bring Back Forests
• Let’s Green Our Cities

““Be like a tree in pursuit of your cause. Stand firm, grip hard, thrust upward. Bend to the winds of heaven..”

Richard St. Barbe Baker

Rivers past and present

World Rivers Day is celebrated on the fourth Sunday in September, which this year happens to be Sunday, 27 September 2020.

Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is home to the Chappell Marsh which is a part of the West Swale. The West Swale is an ancient Pleistocene glacial spillway which was such a great natural phenomena like a huge tidal wave or flash flood which coursed over the landscape connecting the Glacial North Saskatchewan with the Glacial South Saskatchewan Lake, the precursor to the South Saskatchewan River. This event resulted in a waterway or river called the Yorath Island Spillway.

What impact did the Yorath Island Spillway have in the lives of the Palaeoindian? The Yorath Island Spillway caused such a rapid and dynamic change to the landscape similar to a avalanche or earthquake.

If one was to look at the satellite imagery on Google Maps can you find our modern Rice Lake. During the Pleistocene era Glacial Rice lake was ever so huge, it connected with the Glacial North Saskatchewan river, like a large bulge on the river. The melting glacier would melt during warmer eons contracting, and then freeze and expand during colder epochs. As the glacier melted, it retreated north east across the continent we now call North America. As the glacier melted, waters coursed down the sides of the great ice slab creating the Glacial North Saskatchewan River and Glacial South Saskatchewan Lake. The shoreline of Glacial Rice Lake could only hold so much glacial melt water in its basin. The glacier meltwaters kept coming, until Wheeush! water exploded across the plains creating a low lying land mass across the countryside currently known as the West Swale, and yet geologists refer to this great phenomenon as the Yorath Island Glacial Spillway.

How long did the river called the Yorath Island Spillway last? Long enough to create unique archeaological finds all along the banks of the spillway river. Dr. Ernie Walker in Saskatoon career started with discoveries along the West Swale, and the stories he can tell are fascinating.

Can you imagine the Palaeoindian following the animals trails while you are walking in George Genereux Urban Regional Park? There would be unique vegetation growing along the water’s edge where animals would come to feed and drink. The Palaeoindian subsisted on the buffalo even in those days, and other Pleistocene era animals and megafauna. Can you imagine the size of the Yorath Island Spillway as waterfowl are sighed on the Chappell Marsh wetlands located in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation area?

Where nowadays this great ancient river is evident on satellite maps and in geography reports as lush green heritage riverbanks still standing in testament to the great waterway, along with interconnected marshes, kames, and underground natural water springs, what must have it been like all those many years ago? What is a kame? Were the Palaeoindian and animals caught off-guard by the great bursting of the banks when the flood waters rushed out?

So on World Rivers Day, celebrate Saskatoon’s South Saskatchewan River, and discover more about our rich geological past and the Yorath Island Spillway [river].

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  Northern Shoveler

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  Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), wetlands mammal enjoys the emergent vegetation around Chappell Marsh such as cattails

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  Autumn picture of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas supported by the non profit group Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. Please join now, like, support, share.

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  Loving the Wetlands

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  White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Hodges, Larry Edwin: Morphology of the South Saskatchewan River Valley Outlook to Saskatoon PhD Thesis. Department of Geography. McGill University. Montreal, Quebec. July 1971.
Theberge, John B., (1989) The Wholeness of Nature. Legacy, The Natural History of Ontario. McClelland and Stewart Inc. ISBN 0-7710-8398-X

For directions as to how to drive to “George Genereux” Urban Regional Park

For directions on how to drive to Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

For more information:

Blairmore Sector Plan Report; planning for the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area,  George Genereux Urban Regional Park and West Swale and areas around them inside of Saskatoon city limits

NEW P4G District Official Community Plan

DRAFT P4G Saskatoon North Partnership for Growth The P4G consists of the Cities of Saskatoon, Warman, and Martensville, the Town of Osler and the Rural Municipality of Corman Park; planning for areas around the afforestation area and West Swale outside of Saskatoon city limits

Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SW 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063
Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot
Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com
Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map
Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map

Pinterest richardstbarbeb

Facebook Group Page: Users of the George Genereux Urban Regional Park

Facebook: StBarbeBaker

Facebook group page : Users of the St Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

Facebook: South West OLRA

Twitter: StBarbeBaker

Please help protect / enhance /commemorate your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail)

1./ Learn.

2./ Experience

3./ Do Something: ^***

The trees and vegetation, which cover the land surface of the Earth and delight the eye, are performing vital tasks incumbent upon the vegetable world in nature. Its presence is essential to earth as an organism. It is the first condition of all life; it it the ‘skin’ of the earth, for without it there can be no water, and therefore, no life.~Richard St. Barbe Baker

It is not a farce…”To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.” ~Terry Tempest Williams

“Clearly, human pressure is exerting a sudden and cataclysmic impact on much of this province, if viewed in the time-frame of evolution and geology to which the rhythms of ecosystems are tuned. The groundswell of environmental concern taking shape among us, its citizens, results in public pressure for new and stronger strictures on human exploitation and desecration…Such action is needed as the embodiment of an ethical responsibility to the land and living things, for our own well-being as well as for that of all other species.” Theberge, 1989. P.376