BAIKIE ISLAND AND CAMPBELL RIVER ESTUARY
| Main Access | Raven Channel & Baikie Island: from junction of North Island Highway 19 & Old Island Highway, travel north along North Island Highway for 800 m, turn east (right) on Robinson Rd. to gravel parking area.
Myrt Thompson Trail: from junction of North Island Highway 19 & Old Island Highway, turn east along Old Island Highway for 680 m, turn north (left) on Maple St. to limited roadside parking. Tyee Spit: from junction of North Island Highway 19 & Old Island Highway, turn east along Old Island Highway for 1.5 km, turn north (left) on Spit Rd. to Dick Murphy Park at end. |
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AKA “The Spit”
Greenways is responsible for doing maintenance and restoration work on a number of sites around Campbell River. Important environmentally, they are also significant to the community at large. Over the last half of a century, the estuary has gone through significant change. Industries came and went. The landscape got modified over decades to serve industrial needs. Now nature is taking back over the estuary. Together with various organizations and its fantastic volunteers, Greenways is working on the on-going restoration.
We do continuous work in the estuary to remove invasive species such as Scotch Broom and Himalayan Blackberry, while replacing them with native species that naturally grow in the area. More recently, we have also installed habitat features including bird and bat boxes, many of which were created by local students at Robron School. Additionally, Greenways runs a goose banding project for Canada Geese in the estuary. To read more about this project, read our report from May 2017 here. Another project the organization works on at the Tyee Spit is monitoring and mapping out the endangered plant species, Deltoid Balsamroot. Campbell River is home to 20% of the Deltoid Balsamroot populations in Canada.
Making Baikie Island a Wildlife Management Area is in the talking. A great insight by the Campbell River Mirror [May 4, 2017]: “Greater protection sought for Campbell River Estuary”.
Thank you to the City of Campbell River and Environment and Climate Change Canada for supporting this project with the National Wetland Conservation (NYCF) fund.
