Selected Excerpts from the Vancouver Natural History Society “Bulletin”
Participation in the B.C. Nature Council
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- End Note 26: Night School Courses in Botany Ornithology (see page 273) The Shulaps Summer Camp
- Botany – Photographic Group
- Geology and the Apollo Flight
- End Note 27: Birds for the Record (see pages 273-274)
- Editorial –Linnaeus the Philosopher
- End Note 28: Birds For the Record (see page 274) The Bridge River Ash Deposit
- End Note 29: Intermediate Section Junior Section (see pages 274-275) Why Hummingbirds Hum!
- End Note 30: Botany Section (see pages 275-276) The Antiquity and Youth of Mountains
- End Note 31: Birds for the Record (see page 276) Bird Chatter
- Burnaby Lake Wildlife – Habitat or Epitaph
| Participation in the B.C. Nature Council
The members will be asked at the regular meeting on March 19th, 1969 to approve a recommendation that the Society renew for a further year its affiliation with the Vancouver Museums Association, at a cost (to the Society’s treasury) of one dollar per individual, or two dollars per family membership; and that the Society continue for a further year as a member-society of the B.C. Nature Council, at a cost (to the treasury) of fifty cents per individual. P.J. Croft End Note #26: Night School Courses in Botany & Ornithology (see page 273) The Shulaps Summer Camp The camp area is located near the Elizabeth Mines at the end of a moderately good, but narrow road, 56 miles northeast of Lillooet at an altitude of 6,700 feet. From it many hikes of varied nature, short or long, easy or difficult, may be readily made. The Shulaps Range in which the camp lies, is on the flank of the Coast Range overlooking the interior plateau on the north and east, and commanding striking views of the glacier-hung peaks of the Coast Range to the west. The famed Placer River of the Yalakom bounds the area on the east, and the Bridge River and its tributaries on the west. Lying as it does in the lee of the tall peaks on the west, the area receives little precipitation and the chances for blue sky and sun are good. The flora offers unusual variety and occasionally, spectacular colour. The geology too is highly varied and is notable for its large areas of ultra basic greenstones and jade-like rocks; fossil bearing rocks of the Cretaceous and Tertiary ages, volcanic and unusual superficial features add interest to the area. Mineral claims on deposits of gold, mercury, magnesium, chromium and manganese are common and underground developments have been performed on deposits of gold and mercury. Native ungulates include sheep, goat, deer and moose; alpine birding and entomology are the best in B.C.; grizzly bears were virtually exterminated several years ago. Small lakes and groves of twisted timberline pine of great age would have interest for the photographer. Botany – Photographic Group An interesting meeting of this group was held during January under the chairmanship of Roy Edgell who explained the purpose of the project – that of producing sets of colour slides of scientific value depicting in detail the diacritical features and characteristics of plants in a number of selected families. Dr. Beamish explained, with the help of a number of slides from photographs and drawings, many of the structural details by which plant families could be identified and indicated the type of photographic treatment that would be of greatest scientific usefulness. Mr. Croft briefly discussed the type of photographic equipment needed in carrying out the project and demonstrated a simple optical bench for use with or without a microscope, the function of which being to maintain critical alignment of subject, camera – and microscope if used – when dealing with extreme close-up work. The attendees were divided into groups responsible for photographing the following: orchid, heather, saxifrage, dogwood, lily, honeysuckle rose, pine and Oregon grape plant families. The Vanishing Valley The suggestions of the members are solicited toward the purchase or reservation by the Provincial Government of areas in the Lower Fraser Valley that there may be good reasons for setting aside as parks, or dedicated natural history areas. It is all too well known that it is becoming difficult to find even good dykes or woodlands in which to walk and study nature without encountering “No Trespassing” signs. Funds are being provided through the Vancouver-Fraser Parks Authority and the Provincial Government for the acquisition of land for parks and recreation in the Lower Fraser Valley. Where such land is already alienated into private hands, it would have to be purchased by the Authority, presumably making use of the funds provided. Territory still “in the Crown” could be reserved as parkland if suitable representations were made. The question arises as to what kind of representation should be made and by whom? Our Society should be prepared to advance suggestions regarding any tracts of land that are interesting to naturalists and the kind of protection such land might need. Members are requested to notify me of any area they are aware of, bearing in mind that such tracts should be of natural history significance. V. C. Brink Geology and the Apollo Flight The historic Christmas flight of Apollo 8, bringing views of the Moon from a height of 70 miles right into our parlours, probably meant something different to each viewer. All would no doubt agree that the flight was a fantastic achievement of physics, mathematics and human courage. To geologists it was also a milestone in their quest for an understanding of the early history of the Earth. Geologists take an almost proprietary interest in the Moon. After all, they believe, the Moon is Earth’s little brother, a product of the same hierarchy of cosmic condensation. Because of its relatively puny size and consequent weak gravitation, the Moon is both airless and waterless. Without any weather or waves to wear away its surface, its physical features should be preserved for many hundreds of millions of years. Robert Jastrow, writing in Scientific American May 1960, speaks of the Moon as an “astronomical Rosetta Stone” holding in its structure a record of the early events that provide a key to the origin of the solar system. Such a record is completely lost to Earth-bound geologists. One question about the Moon that has been argued for a hundred years and still not settled is the origin of its craters. Are they the result of activity within the Moon – that is, volcanic – or are they the consequence of explosive impacts of large meteors? Many geologists working with telescopes believe that most of the craters are volcanic. There was in 1958 a report of a flash or glow of gas that suggested active vulcanism in the region of the crater Alphonsus. It is not always easy to tell the origin of a crater even on Earth. For a long time the classic meteor crater in Arizona was thought to be volcanic. The trouble with lunar craters is that many of them are so large, far larger than those on Earth. One investigator, Robert Dietz, was very strong on the meteor origin of the large lunar craters and reasoned that similar very large meteor craters must have been produced on Earth in the distant past. He looked for and found evidence of ancient geologic structures that were produced by impact and for them he coined the word “Astrobleme”. In Scientific American August 1961, he described such a structure in South Africa whose effects extend over a diameter of more than 100 miles. Highly significant advances in lunar geology were made in 1967 by the soft landings of Surveyor 5 and 6. These remarkable craft, on instructions from Earth, reached out and sampled the lunar surface, then made rough chemical analyses of the material. It turned out that the lunar soil is basic igneous rock with a composition like that of Hawaiian lava flows. Complete understanding of the Moon awaits the actual work of men on its surface, observing the relations of one rock unit to another, and bringing back specimens upon which determination of absolute age may be made. It is an exciting prospect for the next generation of geologists who aspire to become ‘scientologists’. C.S. Ney Ornithology Bird Hot Line – Thirty-two birders on the list of “hotliners” were rewarded in January. Madelon Schouten reported an emperor goose on the rock breakwater at White Rock and Tom Stevens a pure yellow-shafted [northern] flicker at his feeding station in South Burnaby, both sightings on January 12th. End Note #27: Birds for the Record (see pages 273-274) Bird Chatter – For inexperienced and prospective birdwatchers the West Vancouver School Board is planning to sponsor an evening course in bird watching commencing mid-March for about eight weeks. A.R. Davison, Ornithology Chairman of the Victoria Natural History Society, has just finished an excellent annotated List of Birds of Southern Vancouver Island. It is available through the Provincial Museum in Victoria. Be sure to read About Birds by John Rodgers in the Vancouver Sun’s Leisure section each Friday. Mr. Rodgers will list our scheduled bird trips as well as keep us informed weekly of bird happenings in the Lower Mainland. Do you want to help out-of-town birdwatchers? Our bird section is gathering names, addresses and phone numbers of local birders who are willing to share their talents and experience in guiding or directing out-of-town visitors to birding areas in the Lower Mainland. Already Werner and Hilde Hesse, Jack Husted, John Toochin and [myself] are helping. If you want to help, phone the section chairman before April so that a list can be completed and sent to bird groups throughout North America before the summer season. Al Grass Vancouver Christmas Bird Count Date: December 28th, 1968 Time: 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Temp: 5̊F to 15̊F (Chill factor -27̊F) Wind: 10-20 mph (NW); light in sheltered bays and inlets. Weather: Some sunny periods; generally overcast; up to 6” of snow cover; standing waters frozen. Visibility: Poor to fair; periodic low haze over water; low clouds over some areas. Observers: 77 in 23 parties. Total party hrs: 195 Total party miles: 655 After tallying the Count it seems almost unbelievable that a record 77 birders and their friends ventured into the field and endured inclement weather conditions to establish a Vancouver Count record (likely Canadian) of 132 species. Our previous high was 128 species in 1966. The total is surprising since most standing waters were frozen and in many places snow covered the ground. In general our total individual birds was down. Perhaps this can be attributed to flocking rather than an even dispersal of the birds in the count area. Consequently many ‘tight’ flocks may have been overlooked. The water bird count was down but the winds and haze over the waters made detection and counting difficult. Interestingly, most wintering populations of waterfowl were up over previous totals. Starling counts were down considerably, about the same as reported in 1963. Five new birds were recorded for the first time since 1954. These were green heron, common teal [the Eurasian race of the green-winged teal], redhead, pine grosbeak and white-throated sparrow. Five other species reported during the count period (December 20th to January 5th), but not on Count Day, were European [Eurasian] wigeon, western gull, spotted sandpiper, [American] dipper and common redpoll. Two additional subspecies or races are here included in the Count total: cackling geese (Canada goose sub sp.) and one blue goose (snow goose sub. sp.). The National Audubon Society considers the blue goose a full species and therefore is included. Rock doves numbering 716 are not included in the Count because the species is not acknowledged in published Counts. Some interesting comparative results: tree sparrows, turkey vultures and long-eared owls were seen for the second time since 1954; lowest numbers ever of short-eared owls and western meadowlarks; largest numbers reported this year for mallard, [northern] pintail, green-winged teal, wood duck, bald eagle, black turnstone, yellow-bellied [red-breasted] sapsucker, rufous-sided [spotted] towhee, Oregon [dark-eyed] junco and fox sparrow Appreciation is extended to area compilers and to Barry Edwards, Robert Footit, Al Grass, Jack Husted and Eileen McCammon who helped in various ways with this year’s Count. On behalf of all participants special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. W.J. Smith for their hospitality and kindness during our post-count gathering in their West Vancouver home. R. Wayne Campbell #143 June 1969 Editorial –Linnaeus the Philosopher To most people, Linnaeus, or Carl von Linne, the Swedish savant of the 18th century, is remembered as a sort of Patron Saint of Naturalists, the teacher and inspiration of a remarkable group of eminent scientists who followed him. To the naturalists he is perhaps best known for his Linnaean “binomial” system of naming and classifying natural species that, in spite of the earnest endeavours of later taxonomists to cloud it with layers of confusion, remains the neat, handy method we all use and bless Carl von Linne for it. John Barlett’s Dictionary of Familiar Quotations, however, shows another facet of this great man’s character, that of the gentle homespun philosopher. Of the five quotations from Linne’s writings and utterances given in the edition of Bartlett that we possess, all are most pointedly applicable to this year of grace, 1969. For instance: If a tree dies, plant another in its place! The manner in which Sweden, his native land, has followed this precept has placed her in the position of an example of what a forestry nation should be. A Professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discoverers are among them, as comets among the stars! Here speaks the truly great teacher, and here the worldly-wise counselor – Mingle your joys sometimes with your earnest occupation. Linnaeus, the simple God-fearing man, has inscribed over the door of his bedchamber: Live innocently – God is here! And finally, from a man who, in a rather gluttonous and bibulous century, believed strongly in simplicity and restraint in personal habits, this parting shot for the pill peddlers: To live by medicine is to live horribly! Too true! P. J. Croft, Editor
On April 19th 53 Junior Naturalists and their parents traveled to the Agassiz Bridge area for a geology hike led by Mrs. Barbara Johnson. Many agates and minerals were found along the riverbed. On April 27th Nancy Anderson met them at Lighthouse Park and showed them the botany of the area. The Juniors presented Miss Win Pearson with a gift to show their appreciation for the 13 years she had been their leader. Please note that we have not retired Win altogether. She has agreed to serve on the Junior Naturalist executive along with Mrs. Kathy Moir and Mrs. Kit Footit. This summer 8 field trips [are being planned] throughout the Lower Mainland for our Junior Naturalists, covering most fields of natural history. Interested persons willing to lead or help lead, please contact me. The Juniors will be using the [Vancouver] Centennial Museum auditorium as a meeting place before and after field trips. In the fall and winter it will serve as a meeting room and workshop. Ken Kennedy End Note #28: Birds For the Record (see page 274) The Bridge River Ash Deposit Travelers to summer camp in the Shulaps Range may notice, on the way up along Yalakom River, an exotic light gray material spread over the top soil layer, just beneath the organic debris. This is the Bridge River Ash deposit well known for many years to residents of the Bridge River Valley. Close inspection of the ash reveals that much of it is composed of small chunks of feather light pumice – a glassy rock that frothed up like well-cooked meringue by expanding gases when it was ejected as a liquid from the confines of a volcano. An interesting article on this ash by Nasmith, Matthews and Rouse of U.B.C. appeared in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Vol. 4, 1967. The authors showed that the ash deposits become coarser and thicker to the west, culminating in a layer 50 feet thick and composed of blocks of pumice several feet in diameter, in Lillooet Valley about 35 miles northwest of Pemberton. Here an obscure source of the ash is indicated in the east flank of volcanic Mt. Plinth. By careful examination of soil layers, Matthews’ group traced the ash deposit eastward across the entire province in a plume shaped area of about 15,000 square miles. Others have identified the ash as far east as Saskatchewan Crossing on the Banff-Jasper highway. The age of the ash has been determined by the technique of radiocarbon dating from an occurrence in a peat bog near Jesmond, B.C Here the ash forms a layer about 5 feet below the surface and the peat immediately below it was found to be 2,400 years old. It is concluded that the explosive eruption that gave rise to the ash took place around the year 500 B.C. Many millions of tons of liquid rock were blown to a great height from the volcano, spontaneously being converted to a froth by the escape of steam and gas. Borne by westerly winds, the feathery material slowly deposited over the land, cold and silent, like a strange dark snowfall. Several other ash layers are known in B.C. and the Yukon. The most famous is the Mazama ash, about 6,600 years old, found throughout southern B.C. and into Alberta, as well as all through western United States. This originated in a much more spectacular volcanic event, involving the release of about five cubic miles of liquid rock and the subsequent collapse of an entire mountain structure about the size of Mt. Baker. This fiery convulsion was nature’s way of producing one of the world’s scenic wonders: Crater Lake in Oregon. The Yukon, or so-called White River ash, covers much of the southern Yukon and has been traced to a volcano in Alaska west of Kluane Lake. It is estimated to be a mere 1,400 years old; it involved the eruption of two cubic miles of rock. It is well described in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Feb. 1969. C.S. Ney #144 September 1969 End Note #29: Intermediate Section & Junior Section (see pages 274-275) Why Hummingbirds Hum! (Excerpt from “Humming Bird Hall” featured in The Houghton Line, April 1969) Hummingbirds have the most efficient power plants found in nature. Ranging in size from that of a muscular bumblebee, to a length of about 8 inches, hummingbirds can rise vertically, hover, move sideways, and even fly backwards. Meanwhile their wings are beating at a rate of up to 80 times per second and they are using fuel faster than any jet plane in relation to their weight.
Ninety-one members and cooking staff attended the camp at the old Elizabeth Mine site in the Shulap Mountains some 50 miles northwest of Lillooet, B.C The site at the 6,500’ elevation where timberline, scree and alpine meadow meet, was reached by a narrow, and in some places “indifferent” hinterland road; (mud holes and a slide or two). Its quality notwithstanding, the road placed the camp in comparative wilderness not at all well known to the residents of the Province. Daily hikes took most of the campers to prominent physiographic features – meadow, lake and mountain summit. The scree-covered mountains, such as Big Dog at 9,300 feet, were easily ascended and only one unnamed summit presented a challenge to the mountaineers. Meadows in the several branches of Blue Creek, Noaxe and other lakes with no names were visited repeatedly. Bright weather by day and chilly evenings prevailed during the week. The advance party on their first morning woke to swirling snow and a whiteout. Chilly evenings however, did not diminish the fun and quality of Nancy Anderson’s campfire programs. The contribution by the young people in song, skit and the “Burning of the Litterbug” will long be remembered. The comparative isolation precluded attendance of all but a few visitors; therefore the rich local talent for fun, art and natural history was richly exploited. Campfire discussions ranged from logging or lack of it behind B.C. Hydro dams, local geology, early climbs in the Coast Range, local history to natural history and upward to the stars. Camp talent was well displayed on a special project day for demonstrations of natural, unnatural and artwork. Ingenuity and competition galore went into scree gardens, rock collections, tadpole and insect collections, tree dating and botany displays as well as “fufu birds” and “whifflenitches” constructed from mine rubbish. To those interested in the broad features of natural history in B.C. the Shulaps camp offered unique ones. The flora and fauna reflected the damp position in the dry alpine lee of the Coast Range. Inasmuch as it was near a great fault system and in a location where the rocks of the great serpentine (ultra basic) massif contact limited granitic (acid) rocks, the campsite presented many colourful landscape features. Elsewhere in the world serpentine rocks and the soil derived from them, are noted for their sterility and endemism in flora and fauna; the time since glaciation hardly permits any measure of endemism in the Shulaps, but comparative sterility was manifest on long scree slopes almost devoid of vegetation. Without the contribution to the serpentine soils of large quantities of volcanic ash from the Bridge River area 2500 years B.C., the Shulaps might have been singularly uninteresting. Tchaikazan Camp On Friday evening, one day before the Shulaps Camp ended, ten of its participants left to gather at the junction of the Bridge and Yalakom Rivers to prepare for the next day’s flight. It has been planned that a Beaver float plane would fly from Vancouver to Fishem Lake with four members not at the Shulaps Camp; the plane would then return to Gun Lake to ferry in the party of ten in two loads to join those four already at Fishem. The excellent weather on Saturday enabled the fly-in operation to be completed by midday, everyone having enjoyed the magnificent scenery of the Coast Mountains and eager for further advances into the camp area. Thus the first night’s camp was set up at the end of a mine exploration road about 5 miles from Fishem Lake, just inside the Tchaikazan Valley. For this stage all equipment was trucked in by the packer, but for all the remaining hiking in and out, a small pack was carried by each camper. Sunday, after a six-hour walk of about ten miles, camp was set about two-thirds of the way up the Valley and two nights were spent at this point to allow some exploration of the area. Snow and rain on Tuesday spoiled plans somewhat, but did not stop botanizing and general exploration. It was raining again on Wednesday but as arrangements had been made to have the packer move equipment to the end of the Valley, we trudged, wet and bedraggled, for a further three hours to an alpine meadow within sight of several glaciers and many high peaks. Here two days of excellent weather was enjoyed. While some of the party walked the glacier and climbed to high vantage points to survey the beauty, others walked in the meadows collecting plants to press. Meals had been pre-packaged and arranged so that the party could be divided into groups of four or five and each group cooked their own food on wood fires that were remarkably efficient in the normally dry rain-shadow on the east of the Coast Range. The long walk out was planned for Friday. Fortunately the day was fine and after rising early, at 5:30 a.m., the party was packed and on their way by 8:30 arriving back at Fishem Lake after a long but interesting walk down through the Valley, by 5:00 p.m. The schedule was interrupted slightly on Saturday when the plane, which was due at 11:00 a.m., did not arrive. The bad weather in the mountain passes finally cleared, after a five-hour wait, and the plane arrived to return everyone to his or her starting point. The expedition had been planned to study the natural history of the Tchaikazan Valley and review the area for possible future recreational use. Much of this rather broad aim was achieved, but unfortunately bird life and geological interests were neglected since the camp had not attracted anyone with sufficient knowledge to deal adequately with these two areas of natural history. End Note #30: Botany Section (see pages 275-276) The Antiquity and Youth of Mountains Several decades ago I climbed a ridge of the Bendor Mountains in the Bridge River district surveying some veins of antimony, in the company of a prospector, Tom Turner, a denizen of the now inundated town of Minto. The technical details of the veins are lost to mind, but I well remember Turner’s profound words as we attained a crest and peered into a deep valley headed by a cluster of cirques: “I’m sure glad I wasn’t around when these mountains were being made.” Mountain ranges in general show internal structure of great complexity. Rocks are folded, upended, and thrust upon one another and it is this that excites the structural geologist. The external forms of the mountains, the crags, alps and declivities that delight the nature loving public, constitute a separate entity that, strangely enough, bears little direct relation to the internal structure. The internal structures are produced by imperceptibly slow lateral compression along vast elongated belts of the Earth. The essential uplift is a simple vertical phenomenon that may take place long after the compressive development has been completed. The external forms of mountains are produced by the forces of erosion acting on uplifted masses of rock. We know that the structures of mountains can be very old. The Laurentians are the worn down roots of mountain systems that were generated over a billion years ago. The complex structures in the Appalachians are some 300 million years old. The Cordillera of America evolved over a period of 30 to 200 million years. The Alps and the Himalayas had similar prolonged histories with climactic development 30 to 40 millions years ago. Working with fossil plant pollens and with lava flows, Rouse and Matthews of U.B.C. recently found that some 12 million years ago the climate of Hanceville, B.C. was quite damp. The concluded that there was no rain shadow in that area such as there is now and therefore there was no high Coast Range. The uplift of the Range, and its subsequent carving into the mountains we now love, is a relatively recent event. The same story comes from the Andes, Alps and the Himalayas where geologists have determined that dramatic uplift has occurred in the last few million years. Toni Hagen, in a beautiful book on Nepal states that the Himalayas made their rise in the last 600,000 years, right before the eyes of early man. This may be an exaggeration, but the point remains that universally there has been a profound uplift of mountain belts in the near geologic past, and there is no reason to suspect that this uplift is completed. The sculpturing of the uplifts into mountains is likewise a youthful and continuing process. Tom Turner should not have been so concerned for actually he was there at the dreaded event. Rarely are there earthquakes and landslides, and neither is there sound or fury in the making of mountains; we hear only the soft pulsing murmur of a distant cataract, the occasional clatter of stone fall, and the impatient growling of ice wrestling with rock. C. Ney End Note #31: Birds for the Record (see page 276) Bird Chatter The yellow-headed blackbird has, within the past ten years, become well established in suitable habitat in the Lower Mainland. The largest colony is centered around Sea Island and Iona Island. Bill Anderson, Jim Switzer and Ian McGregor (Seattle) have been studying this colony and banded 56 birds this summer, mostly young. Ken Kennedy and Ian McGregor banded 500 nestling glaucous-winged gulls on the Christie Island sanctuary in Howe Sound late in July. Over 5,000 young glaucous-winged gulls will be banded this summer in this Province. It appears to be a flycatcher summer at White Rock this year. Madelon Schouten reports having seen western [Pacific-slope], Traill’s [willow] and olive-sided flycatchers, western wood-pewee and she suspects a least flycatcher. She has also consented to be the Vancouver co-ordinator for Audubon Field Notes. Interesting bird movements and sightings should be sent to her. The New Westminster School Board has scheduled an evening course on bird watching at Vincent Massey School this fall. There will also be a birders’ photo night – time and place to be announced. Jack Husted has suggested a couple of discussion evenings for birders, when we could pass along our identification tips, etc. Jack picked up a good tip from Ian McGregor who mentioned that ruby-crowned kinglets are more solitary in their habits than the gregarious golden-crowned kinglets. Burnaby Lake Wildlife – Habitat or Epitaph? 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