• Galtt's Home Page
• 
  ABOUT GALTT
• Our aims & projects
• Our history
• Our constitution
• Our Board
• 
  GABRIOLA'S PARKS & TRAILS
• trail maps & walks
• Who owns our parks?
• Gabriola's Trails
• 
  GABRIOLA'S WILD PLANTS
• native Trees & flowers
• Managing invasives
• 
  WAYS YOU CAN HELP
• Members & volunteers
• Donate money or land
• Covenants & trail licences
• 
  RELATED ORGANIZATIONS
  
• BC Parks
• Islands Trust
• Islands Trust Fund
• Gabriola Commons
• NaLT
• Coastal Invasive Plant Cte
• Invasive Plant Council BC

Welcome to GaLTT's website

The aims of Gabriola Land and Trails Trust are to secure, develop, and sustain a network of parkland and trails on Gabriola Island for the benefit of the public, and to preserve sites of environmental, historical, and social importance.

⇐ CLICK ON THE BUTTONS AT LEFT TO FIND OUT MORE…

WARNING: re South Rd Cemetery beach access

A neighbour tried to "upgrade" the South Rd cemetery beach access to build a retaining wall (that may be unlawful) further along the beach. Their work has stopped on the advice of the Islands Trust Bylaw Officer, vehicle access is blocked, and several government departments are trying to determine next steps. The bottom of the trail is a bit slippery when wet and is very uneven and crumbly. Use at your own risk—best with a walking stick.

UPCOMING EVENTS
We'll see you at the Saturday Farmers' Markets!

As usual GaLTT's Saturday morning market display table will be inside Agi Hall all summer, starting on the May long weekend. Come renew your membership, offer to volunteer, tell us about your favourite big tree, get advice about removing invasive plants from your property, pick up a copy of our beautiful new trail map, or just drop by to say hello.

May 13 work party to prepare boardwalk materials

Randy Young says: "On Mother's Day it would be great to hug your mom, but there's work to do. Don Butt has been very kind in donating his old decking, which has been sitting in his back yard for the last month. Some of this decking has already been used for boardwalks in Elder Cedar, on Sally Robinson's trail, and at the Commons, so it is worth saving, and moving to places where it can have a second life."
Meet at Don Butt's driveway, at the corner of Horseshoe and Ritchie road, 1:30pm on Sunday May 13. This will be a nail pulling exercise, but the pile is smaller than the last time. Bring gloves, hammers, and crowbars.

PULL THAT BROOM BEFORE IT GOES TO SEED! If you have broom on your own land or nearby public land, do everyone a favour and pull it. You can borrow a GaLTT extractigator to pull bigger plants—contact Randy Young (250-247-8541 and ranyoung@shaw.ca).

GaLTT's Big Tree Registry

Following our new Strategic Plan initiative, GaLTT is launching a registry to list the biggest trees on Gabriola. We hope that you will measure your favourite large trees, and tell us where they are located. You can email the details to GaLTT at info@galtt.ca, send them to GaLTT board member David Boehm at dfboehm@ shaw.ca, or bring them to our display table in Agi Hall at the Saturday morning Farmers' Markets. Over the summer GaLTT will confirm the sizes and locations of the trees and list them in our registry. Big trees on private land will be publicized only with the landowner's permission.

The recognized measure of a tree is its DBH (diameter at breast height) and in Canada this is measured about 1.3 metres above the ground for native trees. You can simply measure the circumference of the tree at that height and we'll do the DBH calculation for you. Remember to take string, tape measure, pencil and paper to record your measurements. Be respectful of the environment—don't trample the tree roots or surrounding plants.

Professional foresters classify Gabriola's forests as CDF-- Coastal Douglas Fir, the premiere species of our forest. But our forests also contain western red cedar, western hemlock, grand fir (balsam), Pacific yew, juniper, shore pine, western white pine, dogwood, willows, red alder, Garry oak, arbutus, western big leaf maple, trembling aspen, cascara, bitter cherry, Oregon plum and perhaps a few others. These are Gabriola's native trees, but many other tree species have been introduced, such as California redwood, yellow cedar, Sitka spruce, silver birch, yellow or ponderosa pine, English walnut, Lombardy poplar, and no doubt a few more species that we will discover as we build our registry.

RECENT NEWS

Strategic Planning
GaLTT's members and Board have worked together to develop a Strategic Plan for 2012 through 2017. The results are summarized here.

Work parties—landscaping, boardwalk building, and daphne & broom pulling
Randy Young led a work party on April 15 to help with the landscaping at Gabriola Community Health Centre. Other work parties in February, March and April pulled broom in Petroglyph Park, in the school grounds and at Drumbeg Park (again!).

They also built a new boardwalk in March to allow year-round use of the trail from Islands View to Cooper. Randy says they had to: "…haul in concrete blocks, stringer frames, and decking." They used portable electric drills to assemble the boardwalks from wood salvaged from Don and Mary Butt's old deck by yet another work party a few months ago.

Working at the Commons

The Commons invasives team has done sterling work pulling Daphne Laureola from their land, some of it really large. They recently discovered an added problem—horizontal branches can put down new roots and then send up a new shoot, as you can see in Don Smardon's photo. One of Randy's work parties also extended the boardwalk at the Commons, improving wet-weather access to the garden plots.

Elder Cedar covenant signing at the AGM

At GaLTT's AGM on February 7, President John Peirce signed the covenant on Elder Cedar Nature Reserve (S'ul-hween X'pey) on behalf of GaLTT. The 65-acre reserve on the north side of North Road was established in 2006 and is owned by the Islands Trust Fund. GaLTT and NALT (Nanaimo Area Land Trust) co-hold the covenant on the land. Trustee Giselle Rudischer witnessed Peirce's signature.

New Board of Directors for 2012

At the February AGM, long-serving directors Dyan Dunsmoor-Farley and Barbara Hague stepped down from the Board and Peirce expressed GaLTT's appreciation of their work. Three new Directors were elected and welcomed: Carol Hemrich, Anne Landry, and Melanie Mamoser. Go to the board page to read about all 15 current directors, and GaLTT's new committee structure.

January 2012—Two new trail licences

GaLTT signed two new trail licences with local private landowners, allowing the public to use trails across their land on foot, bicycle, or horse. Under the terms of these licences, both trails were added to GaLTT's insurance policy.

• One trail is on Sally Robinson's property between Cooper and Thompson Roads (shown in green at right).
• The other trail (not shown here) is along the edge of the Brockleys' property on Bruce Lynn Drive, connecting through to one of the circuit trails in Cox Community Park.

Our 2012 AGM speaker

Peter Lamb, author of "The Islands Trust Story", former Director of the Islands Trust Fund and Salt Spring Island’s Local Trustee from 2005 to 2008, talked about the Islands Trust's mandate and role. He reviewed how the Trust was formed in 1974 and its evolution since. He discussed its relevance today in the face of governance challenges and economic pressures, and explored:

• the role of non-profit conservancies and land trusts within the Trust area
  and their relationship with the Islands Trust Fund
• the importance of the Islands Trust mandate in avoiding the “creative
  destruction” of communities, as occurred at Niagara-on-the-Lake.

He responded to several interesting questions from the floor about the costs to date, possible future development, support, and funding of the Trust.

2011 ACTIVITIES

GaLTT was very busy last year with both familiar and new activities:

• All year Randy Young organized regular work parties for trail breaking & maintenance, as well as invasives control. We held our first Drumbeg broom bash, pulled tansy ragwort from the roadsides, cleaned up Whalebone Beach, and recycled a wooden deck, using the wood to extend boardwalks at the Commons and in Elder Cedar. Thanks crews!
• In the Spring, Coastal Community Credit Union gave GaLTT $800, which is being used for printing brochures and new trail maps.
• Also, in the spring this new GaLTT website was launched.
• In March 2011 GaLTT signed its first covenant as co-holder with the Islands Trust Fund, on a tract of forested land off Brickyard Hill owned by Karl Bachmann and Marianne Koenig. Other covenant negotiations continued all year.
• Throughout the summer Barb Hague organized our market table to sign up members and disseminate information. She did the same at other Gabriola events. Thanks Barb!
• Members Bob Weenk, Phyllis Fafard, and Tom Cameron led guided walks during the summer in Cox Community Park and 707-acre Park.
• In October GaLTT signed its first trail licence with private landowners Diane and Bill Cornish, for a foot, bike, and horse trail connecting Barrett Road to Rollo Park.
• GaLTT members and board members met in October to develop ideas for a new strategic plan for the next five years. Dyan Dunsmoor-Farley collated their ideas into a draft plan and in December the Board met to refine and finalise it.