26 June 2023 – Ride the #19 bus eastward long enough, and you can visit Central Park — just across the boundary that divides Vancouver from Burnaby.

So, this bright-brisk day, that’s what I do. Out of sheer curiosity.

It drops me into a 90-Ha urban park with amenities that don’t much interest me (sports stadium, swimming pool, BBQ pits, tennis courts, playground, golf course) but other attractions that do.

Two ponds, for example, and a handful of trails…

woven through forest rich with Douglas Fir, Cedar and Vine Maple.

I mix & match my trails, not much caring which one I’m on, just delighted that I can be so deep in the woods, when I am also so deep in the city.

Dramatic black stripes, the mark of old burns…

and delicate black embroidery, the play of sun & shadow.

The endless variety of stumps.

Nurse-log stumps …

a patriotic stump…

and a love stump.

What else to call it? Sporting that day-glo red heart at ground level and, up top, some animal-lover’s donation of peanuts, complete with an appreciative squirrel.

He sits still long enough to be photographed. Later I watch someone try to freeze-frame a chipmunk, who is conducting lightning raids on the peanuts scattered on another tree stump. Happy chipmunk; frustrated human, who finally laughs & gives me the palms-up gesture of defeat.

Lightning moves, also, by some delicate little yellow birds I can’t identify…

and intermittent, but loud, editorial comment by assorted crows.

Signage. As I skirt the upper pond, signs warn us to avoid one specific area, where people are allowed to practise their fly-casting skills.

Here the danger is less physical. At least for us humans, if not for the eco-system as a whole.

Photos on the next sign show how pretty these invasive plants often are (Purple Loosestrife, Yellow Flag Iris, Periwinkle, Scotch Broom, Butterfly Bush….) while the text reminds us they are thugs, takeover artists, and we must harden our hearts.

One of the trails i follow is dotted with a series of exercise stations, each with a piece of equipment, and none with any explanation of how to use it. I therefore shrug and walk on by — but that’s the boring old adult reaction, isn’t it?

Children react differently. These little boys spot this rectangle of metal and run to it with whoops with delight.

Bounce-bounce-bounce!!! Shimmy-shimmy-shimmy!!! They make it their own.

Their laughter is still in my ears when I stop flat at the sight of this up-ended root system. We read about the intricate entanglement of roots below the forest floor… Here it is on display.

Roughly calculated against the 1-metre length of my hiking poles (middle of the image), this mass must be something like 4 metres high by 6 metres wide. And, big as it is, it’s a minute part of the forest system.

From nature’s grandeur to human linguistics, as I cut behind the stadium on my way out of the park.

Aha, I think, so that’s what you call a resident of Burnaby.

Nope! That’s what you call “Burnaby’s own Belgian-style beer.” (Lightly spiced with coriander.)

With or without coriander, Burnabarian is a delicious word, with a polysyllabic mouthfeel to rival its oats-fed liquid equivalent, and I am happy to have learned it.