When grunt gallery did their call-out for submissions for a partnership with Digital Stories Canada, I immediately emailed my submission. It was due time my story go digital, having been working from the ground up, literally. Not only is grunt gallery a connection to my alma mater where my vision came to fruition, the story could continue to grow as I began my steps towards the online platform. Featured on the newly-minted Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen at Kingsway and Broadway. Please, see video below.
Wanting to work outdoors with people, I had started down the path of becoming a social worker. Quickly realizing I couldn’t leave my environmental sciences side adrift, I contacted the registrar Jane about looking for a program in sociology and environmental sciences. Her reply was “oh, we only have environmental studies“. We called over to the dean of science to consort with Dr. Raeside. They both sent me away to map out my four years and come back to them with a plan. With my course outline accepted, with a big red checkmark to go ahead, I began building my future to work with people and plants in the outdoors and nature. I cultivated my undergrad in both sociology and the sciences, weaving the study of Aging & Gerontology and Youth-at-Risk, with human activity in the environment & ecology. Upon graduation with a summer job as a gardener, it became clear that the garden was one place I could do my work. I ventured on the trails and waterways of BC volunteering with Take A Hike during their first decade as an adventure-based learning program out of John Oliver Secondary, being a bridge for the students between discovery and knowledge and connection to the nature we were surrounded by. [Alyssa, I created an ecosystem! As he fed limpets to a hermit crab in a tidal pool in the Broughton Archipelago].
I was also starting my own gardening business. I gardened in the mornings while working afternoons at the youth program at Kiwassa Neighbourhood House. I created the Critters Program, where Saturdays we would fill the 15 passenger van and venture to the far reaches of the lower mainland in a 2 hour time slot. Running barefoot in the autumn sands at Buntzen lake. Feeling the cool sand between your toes while sketching the mountains of the watershed. Stealthily walking through the grasslands at the Reifel Bird Sanctuary. Cradling the bunnies at Maplewood Farms. Playing find-that-tree in the woods next to the Fraser River. Some kids had never walked outside barefoot. Others had never crossed the bridge but a five minutes drive from the Neighbourhood House. We shared culture, stories, art, raw experience and observation. The joy. The excitement. The discovery.
Till this project, my story had been told by me and by those who found me by referral… one garden at a time. It was time I grunted through the process of taking my story digital. So it’s a special thanks to Digital Stories Canada and the grunt gallery that I bring to you today two and a half minutes of my West Coast career.
