Sandi is a rambler based between the coast and the Kootenays in western Canada. She has been an educator, a community festival co-producer/artistic director, street vendor, and house cleaner over the last 5 decades. She now divides her time between her Kootenay garden, various music festivals, conscious dance events, and rambling/exploring different parts of the world during the months when gardening at home isn’t an option.
Drizzly days are the best rambling days for me if I'm back in North Vancouver. The trails tend to be less busy on misty grey days, so my wanderings might be punctuated by the odd runner or dog-walker, but for now, no large groups.
After 50+ years of haunting the trails around Lynn Canyon and Rice Lake, getting past the concession area, over the bridge, and onto an actual trail is always sweet. Most of what was a simple dirt trail back in the days when "the canyon" was our playground is now a system of boardwalks with landings and stairs.
The sheer volume of visitors necessitates protecting all those sneaky, snaky tree roots. But once, this was a place where, as teenagers, we learned so much about ourselves, life, and sometimes death. The canyon still entices young daredevils to brave the "epic natural waterfall slide" into the pools at Twin Falls.
What those YouTube videos don't tell their viewers is that those "natural waterslides" were traditionally only attempted by local kids when the water levels were at late August lows. Even then, it didn't always end well.
It's a wet morning in March. I make a point of getting here ahead of most visitors. For me, the canyon has become an old friend. There are landmarks: the glacial erratic boulder with its perpetual puddle-pond; the cliff at 30 Foot Pool that, as teenagers, we all jumped from as a rite of passage; the perpetually emerald green 30-foot pool that doesn't care if the sky is blue or grey.
Then there are the thick electric green mosses, the salal, the nurse logs, and giant stumps sprouting Ganoderma discs and hemlock seedlings. Ferns cascade down ravine slopes, and shaggy-coated Cedar branches swoop down dramatically. There . . .in a bright spot . . .the first magenta salmonberry flower of the season!
Stand here, breathe the misty air deeply, and give thanks.
As kids and young adults, we filled the canyon with our shrieks, giggles, chatter, and even blasting music. Now, decades later, this is a place to listen. The freshet roaring through the steep gorge in the spring, the gurgle of the braids through what's become a bouldered plain after 30 Foot Pool, the heavy dripping of rain from Cedar and Hemlock: to be walking through these ancient water songs is a process, a meandering meditation.
And now, although I will occasionally come down here with old friends from the area, I prefer to wander forested areas alone, listening, watching, and always learning something new, even after hundreds of rambles here.
Emerging back into brighter light just before the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, I can see a trickle of visitors descending toward the other end of the bridge from the new concession area. Lynn Canyon has been a regional park with a suspension bridge since 1912, when enterprising owner-operators charged a dime to cross the bridge. It's free to cross now, but the pay parking bandits await near the entrance.
This is no primeval forest. Loggers decimated the old forests here well over a century ago. The old photos of the wasteland left by primitive clearcuts are heartbreaking. All that is left of some of the giants that watched over this place - sacred to the Squamish - are a few massive stumps that have yet to rot out and return to the earth totally.
Yet the insistence here on growth and resilience is inescapable.
The dank decay here is essential; it's the chaotic prima materia, the basis of the mycorrhizal wonder that webs new life into being here on the edges of Raincouver.
I thank my lucky stars for being fortunate enough to come of age in a part of the world where I can return and feel received, whole, and replenished. Indeed, water is life.
Lynn Canyon Park opened in 1912 and is a popular tourist spot and a favorite among North Vancouver locals. The park's main attraction, the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, stands 50 meters (160ft) above the canyon and is part of the Baden Powell Trail. Besides the bridge, the park has many hiking trails and amenities, such as the Lynn Canyon Cafe and Ecology Centre.
READ MORE > Ramble Logs, Rambler Cafe Blog
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