2019
CLASSROOMS NOT CLEARCUTS
Clack Creek Forest
an outdoor school set beneath the 150+ year old trees of Clack Creek. Every Sunday, participants were treated to lessons and performances by local artists, musicians and storytellers.
AUGUST 25 2019
Living Soundscapes: A digital, vegetal interface
with Joah Lui
“On a recent trip to Toronto, I met artists Tosca Teran and Andrei Gravelle (nanotopia.tv) and began to learn about hacking technology to create Bio-Sound-Art with mycelium, plants and other living bodies. With them, I was able to build and bring back my very own portable Bio-sonification module to sample, amplify and record microscopic fluctuations in conductivity. Could this be what our ENERGY or QI sounds like? If you’d like to experience what the invisible layers of the forest sound like, bring some art supplies and join me for a quiet and contemplative time to draw, paint, write, sculpt, etc. This will be a 2-hour experience culminating in a temporary gallery exhibit at the end of the workshop.”
—Joah Lui
August 18 2019
Backwoods Jazz
with Karen Graves and Budge Schachte
August 11 2019
Forest Trekking: Plant and animal ID of the Clack Creek Forest
with Ross Muirhead
Ross Muirhead of Elphinstone Logging Focus led participants on the Clack Creek Gallery Loop Trail. He provided tree and plant identification and the signs of Elk, Deer, Bear and Wolf. The hike was moderate rating and was 2 to 3 hours in duration, including stops, on a flagged trail. He explained how Clack Creek is a Mature forest (80-160 years old), however due to it being well-established it structurally functions as an old-growth forest.
August 4th 2019
Your Story Will Be Heard: An all-ages storytelling workshop
with David Roche
Stories build community—so your first assignment will be to listen and to look at the storyteller with warm eyes to help bring out the storyteller's deepest truth. Then you will offer appreciation. We may ask for a time limit so that everyone gets a chance. All levels of experience, all ages welcome but story content and style is entirely up to the person telling the story. We love shy storytellers because they tend to save their words for exactly the right time.
July 28th 2019
‘Smartphone Camera: Tricks for Kids and Teens’
with Sophia Dagher
Kids and teens (ages 8 to 18): learn practical special effects and tricks to spice up your photos, vlog, home videos, tik-tok videos and Instagram stories. Together, we will create a forest horror movie on an iPad.
JULY 21ST 2019
Wild Stages: Site-specific theatre in the wilderness
with Kendra Fanconi
This 2.5 hour workshop will give you a foundation in envisioning outdoor and wild locations to make site-specific theatre. Walk the Clack Creek forest with theatre-maker Kendra Fanconi, and learn how to unlock the character of a place. We will look at some sites as a group and provide time to develop your own visions for sites you discover in this mossy green wonderland. For performers or outside-eye types of any age and any level of experience.
July 14th 2019
Woodland Groove
with Arias Boon
Come and bathe yourself in sound under the canopies of the old growth.
July 7th 2019
Blessing and Welcome:
Mus-wiya (Jamie Dixon) - shishalh elder
Jamie will bless and welcome us all to the Clack Creek Forest situated on unceded shishalh lands thereby opening the Living Forest Institute 2019 Summer Program.
Feeling the Textures of the Forest
with Marleen Vermeulen
I would love to guide you in ‘feeling’ the forest in the stillness. Through sketching the textures in the bark and details on the forest floor, you’ll feel more present to what is. Looking with a specific focus, it will make you see what might otherwise go unnoticed. By the end of the afternoon, I guarantee you won’t be a spectator to looking at the beauty, but you’ll rather be one with your subject. You will have a different relationship with what you sketch and will ‘feel' the connection.
The Clack Creek Forest is no longer and was clear cut in the Spring of 2020 by the BC Government.
Watch this 5 minute video sharing the aftermath of Clack Creek Forest’s transformation from a blue listed ecosystem (vulnerable to human disturbance) to a logging sorting ground.
Read Elphinstone Logging Focus’ "Under the Canopy" report providing a summary of the Clack Creek Forest demise, connectivity opportunities for an expanded Mt. Elphinstone Park, and an update on the Dakota Bear Sanctuary campaign.