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NATURE
· Vanishing Natural Habitat
FIRST PEOPLES
· First Nations in the City
HISTORY
· Seeking a New Home
This is a link to a map of the cities of British Columbia with an optional close-up map of Vancouver and Victoria.

FOCUS  Vancouver and Victoria

Vanishing Natural Habitat
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This is a satellite image of urbanized Greater Vancouver, showing Burns Bog as a dark patch in the lower centre.
At the lower center of this satellite image, Burns Bog shows as a dark patch in the middle of urbanized Greater Vancouver. NASA.
Embedded firmly within the southern tier of Vancouver's suburbs is a huge wetland called Burns Bog. Covering 4,000 hectares, it is the largest domed bog on the Pacific coast of North America and the largest undeveloped tract of land in urbanized Canada. Seen from the air, it is a dark green island in the midst of a grey and brown mosaic of industry, landfill, residential developments and intensive agriculture. Seen from the ground, it is a lowland northern wilderness with southern skyscrapers on the horizon.
Burns Bog is a rare northern habitat in an urban environment. Richard Hebda.
This is a photograph of Burns Bog, showing trees and water.
Reakirt's Copper butterflies and Zigzag Darner dragonflies flutter and fly over the mossy carpet, as many as a dozen Black Bears feast on blueberries and cranberries, and even a handful of Sandhill Cranes make the bog their home. Recently, a relict population of Southern Red-backed Voles – denizens of northern or mountain muskegs – was discovered.
Southern Red-backed Vole. Sydney Cannings.
This is a photograph of a Southern Red-backed Vole on the ground amongst vegetation.
Five thousand years ago, Burns Bog was a wetland right at the mouth of the Fraser River. As the delta passed it by, its stagnant waters – probably choked with slowly rotting logs – were gradually overtaken by peat mosses. The moss layer became thicker and thicker, the water rose with it and the bog grew higher and higher, forming a dome. The centre of the dome is now almost 6 metres above the river! Burns Bog has long suffered the double indignity of massive peat extraction and drainage followed by garbage dumping – it is Vancouver's primary refuse site. This remarkable ecosystem deserves a better fate. As much of it as possible should be preserved in its natural state.
A small, relict population of Sandhill Cranes lives in Burns Bog. These magnificent birds have largely disappeared from the populated valleys of southern British Columbia. Richard Cannings.
This is a photograph of a white, Sandhill Crane standing on one foot.
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