On the ferry ride over from the Mainland we heard on the radio that Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands were getting hit hard by a snowstorm. This is highly unusual for the area and we weren’t too sure what was going to be in store for us.

We met up with the Asset Management crew on our first morning and got a good sense of where the trails were located on the Gulf Islands and some of the unique problems that they face. We were able to get out to Portland Island to assess the trails and discussed ways of rerouting the existing trails to avoid some of the culturally and ecologically sensitive areas that have recently been discovered.

While we were able to put on our classroom session for most of the Parks sta! and members of the Capital Regional District from Victoria, we couldn’t get out to build since there was a good 20 centimeters of snow in the area where we wanted to work. We spent another half of the day with sta! reviewing projects that we had tackled in other National Parks across the country. We hope to make it back to Gulf Islands in the spring to complete our visit and get our hands dirty with some unique projects.