- Parking: On site
- Washrooms: in the Visitor Center
- Paved and Dirt Paths
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| Thistles in bloom by the water's edge |
This morning, I wandered through the collection of streams, ponds and wetlands that is the Pearce Estate Water Conservation Area, a lovely park just downstream of the city center. The main area is a fairly flat manicured lawn, dotted by mature trees, picnic tables and lots of room to play frisbee or kick a ball around. It is also home to the Sam Livingstone Fish Hatchery and the Bow Habitat Visitor Center, including a little catch and release pond.
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| The current slows at the end of the Harvie Passage. |
I started off walking along the river pathway, but stopped almost before I began at the Harvie Passage, a series of rapids constructed at the weir. The look-out point is a great piece of outdoor architecture and the churning waters below are mesmerizing. I must have sat for ten minutes just watching one area where the water created a perfect mirror of the tumbling whitecaps above it.
Once back at the Pierce Estate Park, I explored the network of dirt paths. Today I shared the park with just one other person, a vole, many squirrels and a myriad of chickadees, red-winged blackbirds, robins, and sparrows, all swooping, singing, and sometimes just hopping along the path in front of me.
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| A mossy waterfall. |
It's as if the park and it's inhabitants conspired to put me at ease. The birdsong, the rustle of the cool morning breeze in the leaves, a brook babbling over a little waterfall, the sun filtering through the trees and simmering on the water, and that indescribable "outdoorsy" smell. Ahh . . .
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