Invitation to envision another world

The history of nature is not always and only a lament; it is also an invitation to envision another world.                                             J. B. MacKinnon

We went to the Museum of Vancouver yesterday to see "Rewilding of Vancouver" which is about how the land on which Vancouver sits was, until relatively recently, a wilderness and how unwelcoming it can be for the plants and animals which used to call it home.  Vancouver was called the largest clearcut in BC.  When you think of it, and drive through along the Broadway corridor to get to the museum, you realize how unimaginable it is to think of all that land covered with great big trees and streams and mosses, but it wasn't that long ago that cougars and bears and elk roamed what is now the streets and avenues and urban landscape that we could call a cement jungle.

But as J.B. MacKinnon says, there is hope that we can turn things around.  Beavers are staging something of a comeback, moving down the Fraser River and staking out new territory in suburban and urban environments (like the Olympic Village).  I believe there is a creek in Vancouver that recently saw the return of salmon for the first time in about a hundred years.  Coyotes were first observed in the city in 1982 and look how well they've done!  It was a great display that showed videos of places like Lighthouse Park and Beaver Lake in Stanley Park and the whale that came up into False Creek a few years ago and salmon swimming upstream.  The destruction of Sto:lo hunting territory near Chilliwack, and the life size model of an extinct sea cow (we always eliminate the big animals first, the exhibit says) are juxtaposed with an artists' rendering focused on how we could share the city with wild things (photos of people in a shop looking out the window and seeing a grizzly bear strolling by on the street {and a warning light saying not to go into the street when the light is on because it indicates the presence of the bear}).  I really enjoyed all of it, from the taxidermy displays of animals like wolverines and deer to the fire ants (very tiny but fierce).  There are other cool things to see in the museum, too, like recreations of homes from Vancouver's long past, artifacts from events from the city's history and cool interactive stuff like the juke box.  It's worth a visit and then you can go down to the beach afterwards for a snack and a lounge in the sun.

I will say it's pretty tough to entertain a fifteen year old and a twelve year old.  Both boys took turns being annoyed, irritated or embarrassed by their poor benighted mother, and by the end of the day, I thought there wasn't much point in taking them along -- I wanted to see the "Rewilding Vancouver" exhibit, but maybe they didn't.  But once we were home, they seemed to have enjoyed it more than when we were actually there.  They had stuff to say about it and told their dad it was good and interesting. 

Mike has been transferring video tapes of the boys onto DVD's and I mentioned to Anthony that he was much more enthusiastic about everything when he was a little boy.  He agreed and shrugged.  I'm so glad I'm not a teenager.