Meet Leith Monaghan

FAVOURITE TRAIL: Reconnect and Long Distance

When in WBC you may find Leith on the trails reconnecting with nature and enjoying the peace and tranquility of the Foothills forest. West Bragg Creek is the perfect place for a quick and easy nature fix away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Trails like Long Distance and Reconnect are also great places to spot wildlife like Moose, Whiskey Jack, and even an inquisitive Red Fox. As an interpretive hiking guide and educator, Leith loves to use the WBC areas as a place to find natural inspiration for her programs and share her love of nature with others. Learn more about Leith and her work at The Path Less Taken.

The ancient bedrock ridges and glacial deposits of the West Bragg Creek Trails area, with their forest and wetland blankets of life, provides an opportunity to slow down, look, listen and connect to the more-than-human world that sustains us. Experience Journeys (EJ) is a not-for-profit company that seeks to kindle our understanding and love for landscapes. In addition to nature therapy walks and guided interpretative hikes, EJ offers citizen science projects, workshops, youth education programs and seminars such as the Learn Your Landscape series. EJ has contributed more than $6500 to local conservation causes since 2019…and to BCT for longer! Amarin and Dave have resided in Bragg Creek for 30 years as active participants in both our human and wilderness communities. Learn more at ExperienceJourneys.ca

Nature 101

Beginning this summer, BCT is excited to partner with local naturalists to offer a series of educational sessions that will focus on the amazing natural capital in WBC. Sessions will include trail stewardship/etiquette, what to expect (wildlife, inclement weather, parks pass, range of other trail users) and what to pack and highlight some ‘beginner’ walking trails such as the watershed heritage trail and where to locate the beaver dams.

Check our Events Calendar where we will post all session dates and information.

Hey Nature Lovers – this is cool!

Looking for a great movie to watch this summer? Check out this spellbinding documentary about one of Nature’s miracle’s – fungi. We guarantee you will be mesmerized!

It seems like fungi are everywhere (well they are) and a hot topic for those interested in the natural world. If you want a great summer read on the topic we recommend Merlin Sherdrake’s new book ‘Entangled Life‘:

https://youtu.be/JJfDaIVl-tE

For the Love of Beavers

You may have noticed the impressive beaver activity occurring along Mountain Road at the western PRA boundary. Beavers arrived here in the last couple of years and have they been busy!

There are many benefits that beavers bring to ecosystems.  BCT has been working with Alberta Environment and Parks, The Elbow River Watershed Partnership, Leith Monaghan and Cows and Fish to help us answer questions about this site and about beavers in general.

To learn more, Cows and Fish have released a great publication entitled Beaver – Our Watershed Partner and you can download a copy here.

For even more about beavers, check out Putting Beavers to Work .

The Hinterland Who’s Who series was commissioned in 1962 by the Canadian Wildlife Service, as a way to generate interest in Canada’s wildlife through a series of short, one-minute vignettes, broadcast during commercial breaks.[1] The series, produced for the CWS by the National Film Board, has been airing on Canadian television since 1963.

In the original announcements, a distinctive refrain of flute music (John Cacavas‘ Flute Poem)[3] opens the ad, and is accompanied by the low-key style of the narrator, John Livingston (originally the executive director of the Canadian Audubon Society),[1] describing the animal over footage of it taken in the wild.

From Wikipedia