nature, Photography

Creek Walk

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We live near the Penticton Creek and I love to walk along its length. The trees, birds and sound of the water are all definitely very relaxing.

The creek is beginning to run quite high at the moment and all the nearby trees and bushes have leafed out or turned green, so it’s beautiful to walk there in the sunlight.

This last section of creek before it empties into Okanagan Lake is lined with cement from the early 1950s when the city leadership thought this approach would help to control flooding. That notion certainly didn’t pan out; all it did was cause a serious problem for our landlocked salmon – kokanee – to swim upstream to spawn.

Most of the creek has now been revitalised and returned to its natural state with the rest to be completed in the next couple of years. With ladders in that last bit of unrestored creek, the kokanee are beginning to return home. The picture above from last autumn shows them on their way to mountain lakes. Unfortunately, not all of them make it as you can see, but that’s how it is in the natural world.

Happy May. 🌼

47 thoughts on “Creek Walk”

    1. I was shocked the first time I saw it (pre-restoration) and realised what had been done. The revitalisation is very expensive and so the city has been doing it in chunks. It is a great place for a stroll or long walk as the footpath goes up into the mountains.

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  5. Bad things usually happen when man tries to manipulate nature. Walking through the first flush of spring green always brings hope for a better year. Happy Wednesday Lynette. Allan

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    1. Thanks, Allan. I agree. I was shocked when I first saw what had been done to the creek (this was before the city had completed very much of the restoration), and then of course, so costly to revitalise it. Yes, that tender new green is so beautiful. I haven’t experienced a full spring in a few years since the north doesn’t really get much of one.

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    1. I think that’s the right word for it. Strange. I couldn’t believe what they had done when I first saw it ten years ago (at that time the restoration work had started but wasn’t very far along). The revitalisation has been so expensive, too. Yes, definitely a very strange idea.

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    1. It’s very lovely, particularly at this time of year. Further up the creek is probably even prettier since those sections have been restored. Yes, the sound of running water is very comforting (well, as long as it’s not your basement flooding 😉).

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    1. I like walking near them as well (I just realised that this is the third time I’ve posted about this creek!) especially on a spring evening when the air is soft and the temperature comfortable. Cheers.

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    1. Yes, it unfortunately is, Wayne. This part of the creek bottom is also coated in cement. In the 1950s several km of this creek were given a concrete bottom in order to prevent flooding. Can you believe that?? The only accomplishment from that was issues for the fish since the flooding problem wasn’t solved at all. Right now the creek is in the process being restored; most of the work has been completed with just this last section (before it empties into Okanagan Lake) remaining.

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      1. How odd? Never seen that before? One of the things that a healthy stream needs are minerals. The minerals are found in the bank and bottom of a stream. Covering it with concrete would help make the stream sterile.

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        1. I hadn’t ever seen this before, either. I was shocked the first time I saw it. It was done about 70 years ago (late 1940s or early 1950s) in a very wrong-headed bid to prevent flooding; I don’t think there were any concerns at all about what that would do to the creek’s health. That decision came out of the time period when so many people thought that “conquering” nature was going to be the next step. Unfortunately, there are still people who think that.

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  13. Such a lovely walk! We used to live near a river where we could see salmon going up the stream to spawn, they would put such a show.

    Happy Wednesday🙂

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  14. Creeks are magical — I think it’s the intimacy of their scale. And I am so glad that this one’s boundaries, like those of many other waterways both here & elsewhere, are now being re-naturalized. What a mistake all that concrete was! All part of the Show Nature Who’s Boss era…

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    1. Yes, the show-nature-who’s-boss era. Great way to describe it. Unfortunately, that thinking is still round and about. All I have to do is think of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline. We’re supposed to be cutting back on fossil fuel use but here we are with more of it flowing along …

      I agree. Creeks have a great sense of approachability. I was shocked the first time I saw that this one had been coated in concrete. Such wrong-headed thinking. And it has cost so much to restore it, with the last bit still to go.

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      1. Now we’re in the era of softening what we spent so much time/money hardening! While still in Toronto and walking lots in the ravines, along the lake and out on the islands, I saw the softening work underway pretty well throughout the park system. All admirable, but it also seems such a small response to such huge & entangled problems. Ah well, let us at least rejoice at what is being done, along with lamenting what is not…

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        1. I agree, Penny. What’s done is done, and all we can do is try to repair the damage. At least nature is very good at coming back, surprisingly so after all the battering we have inflicted over the last 200 or so years. There’s only so much that it will take though before we ourselves become the objects of destruction.

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          1. Happy travels east! give my love to Toronto, I hope you have lots of time to prowl and Toronto-area friends to lead you to wonderful spots. And then Iceland… another of my loves…

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          2. Thank you very much, Penny. I will definitely pass on your greetings! We are very familiar with Toronto as I used to visit frequently and M used to live there. We have very good friends there and are looking forward to a couple of favourite restaurants, a Blue Jays game and some prowling for sure. 😊 Cheers.

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  15. Hi Lynette – looks so beautiful and, as you say, peaceful. I was wondering about the man-made creek banks. Thanks for explaining what that was all about. I’m glad to hear it’s returning to it’s natural state. 🙂

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    1. The city has been working on the restoration a bit at a time for about 9-10 years now. It’s quite difficult because the creek has to be temporarily diverted and bridges have to be removed as well. Very painstaking and any work started has to be completed for the beginning of August when the kokanee start heading upstream. It’s lovely now but with completion of the last section it will be really beautiful. Cheers.

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    1. It was at best a very ill-considered idea but the reasoning behind it seems to have drifted away. The flooding actually became worse because the channel was turned into a straight chute. Snow melt apparently came barrelling out of the mountains and spread everywhere. In the 1940s and 50s it was commonly believed that nature could be controlled and conquered, so I think that’s where this nutty idea originated.

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