August 1, 2025
This week we lost Nout for the summer (due to his pursuit of academia) and Romy took off for a week camping trip in Quebec, so the crew was whittled down for the week ahead. Monday the crew had a rocky start, losing Cameron and Rohan due to sickness for the day. That being said, the remaining crew, being adaptive as ever, still managed to prevail despite their circumstances by successfully completing a good portion of stream restoration in Tryon. This took most of the morning and pushed deep into the afternoon. To finish off the day, after some late lunch, the squad cleaned the living heck out of the equipment shed and sharpened those chainsaws as though there were no tomorrow. Shout out to Ian for that.
Tuesday we saw the return of Cameron and Rohan; a great start to the day. When we decided we would be going back to Tryon to restore another large portion of the stream. After that Ian and Matt did some chainsaw maintenance and drew up some bird box blueprints. The rest of the team decided to finish off the day with some brush harvesting from a kind landowner on South Melville who gave us access to land with many spruce trees. We loaded up the trailer with the high quality brush we harvested and dropped her all off behind the Crapaud Hall for tomorrow’s activities.
Wednesday we started the day off with yet again the whole darn team! The squadron decided to head back yet once again to Tryon to finish up the final stretch of stream. At around noon, the gang decided to wrap things up and head back to the office. Our troubles of crew illness and ailments weren’t yet over with, so both Cameron and Rohan decided to head home for the day. Now with a crew of only four, Matt and Theo went to the electrofishing refresher course while Ian and Raelyn reviewed trail camera photos.
Thursday plans went awry, as our two master chainsaws were both barred from clearing to keep themselves (and others) safe in light of their ongoing injuries. The rest of the team constructed some brushmats in Crapaud using the brush from the previous day. In the afternoon the crew went to the Amar property to check if the trees we previously planted needed watering (they didn’t) and then went around to the parks to get a status update on what kind of maintenance was needed for Friday (a good amount). To finish off the day, with the help of a really kind coastal property landowner in Hampton, the crew planted marram grass on the shore next to an eroding cliff. Hopefully these efforts will preserve the cliffs for many years to come. Only time will tell.
Friday. No Raelyn or Rohan. The crew, being thin once again, split up into teams. Teo and Ian started the morning off by doing some much needed park maintenance at our local parks. Cameron, still hurting, stayed at the office and wrote the blog. Fletcher was hard at work getting the poster for this weekend’s Pride Parade completed so they could walk with our beloved board member, Daphne. Cameron and Matt then went around the area and passed out posters for the SSWA Swim. Upon Matt’s return he showed us the taxidermy he acquired from Forest, Fish and Wildlife for the Crapaud Exhibition. We finished off the day by cleaning up the office, setting up our stand at this weekend’s Crapaud exhibition. Although it was a bit of a rough week, SSWA pulled it off (as if there was any doubt!)
We hope to see you this weekend at the exhibition, or out in Charlottetown at the Pride Parade. If you see our SSWA sign pass, give us a wave!
Love, SSWA
