Walk the elk trail, listen to the raven, hear the grouse’s beat, touch the young Cedar’s leaf tips. ephemeral stream is an embodied interactive experience about our coastal forest relations. The site follows an ephemeral stream — a stream activated  by precipitation — to sense and feel the life of an intact forest and a 25 year clearcut. ephemeral stream has two small trails marked as “beginning” and “end”, best experienced in sequence. You will be guided by trail markers dyed with plant medicines. Along the way, hand-tied braids adorn key nonhuman people in the forest. Wooden scores with text and drawings provide information about them, and invite human people to listen, look, touch and feel the incredible vitality of the forest. Can you sense the difference between an old forest and a clear cut? ephemeral steam is for all ages. 

Materials: Reclaimed cedar, reclaimed posts, second-hand cotton fabric dyed with blueberries, Lodgepole pine needles, dandelions and Tobacco, jute twine 

Time: Allow 15 minutes to drive from the Gumboot to the yellow gate, and allow 18-20 minutes to walk from the yellow gate to the site. You will start with a steep hill and some turns, pass the Wagon Trail. Once you arrive at the site, please allow 30-40 minutes for the ephemeral stream walk and interactions. Please bring water.

Accessibility: The walk from the yellow gate to the site is uphill on a gravel road. Portions of the walk are in the sun and can be hot. At the site’s trailhead there is a slope to get down to a small elk trail which may have tripping hazards. The ground is uneven, soft in places and may have running water. There might be wildlife including grouse, elk, bear. Please wear sturdy hiking footwear and dress for the weather. Please bring water, and (optional) snacks. The site’s accessibility is not for everyone. Please take care and self-select. 

Directions to Year 25 of 1000 Year Theatre

Please bring water. Google maps won’t help you so here are the analogue directions. Best to start at the Gumboot because they have beautiful coffee, kombucha and muffins! Allow 15 minutes to drive from the Gumboot to the yellow gate: Go uphill on Roberts Creek Road to the light. Turn right on Highway 1. After Cliff Gilker Park entrance look out for Largo Road on your left. It will appear suddenly after the white sign for Sunshine Coast Equestrian. Turn left onto Largo Road. Drive up the road past the power line parking lots. At the fork, take the left onto Roberts Flume Service Road (Roberts FSTR). The sign for this road has recently been removed so don’t look for it. You’ll cross a small bridge, then see the 1KM sign, stay right, past 2KM. There’s a bend and then you’ll see a yellow gate on the right side. Park there. Allow 18-20 minutes to walk from the yellow gate to the ephemeral stream site. Walk past the yellow gate up the logging road. It’s a steep hill and some turns, but it levels out towards the top. Half way up you’ll pass the Wagon Trail. Keep walking. At the site, you’ll see the 25 yr clearcut on your left which is one portion of the site. Keep walking up the road, about 20 paces, to the main project sign. Allow 30-40 minutes for the ephemeral stream walk and interactions. After the main project sign take a few more steps to the sign marking the ephemeral stream ‘beginning’. Start there. The walk down onto the trail is a bit steep, so take care. Open your senses and take your time. Use the trail markers to guide you. Along the way, you will find 4 scores to introduce you to this intact forest, and braids to help point out some of the people living there. After you experience this portion of the site, return to the clear cut area 20 paces down the road and you’ll see the ephemeral stream ‘end’ sign. It is inset into the clearing.  Enter the trail through the ferns. There are trail markers to guide you. Open your senses and take your time. You’ll come to a round area with 2 scores and braids marking some of the people living on this site. Sit on the dried Bracken fern or the stone if you like. Return back the way you came. 

Artists Bios

Lara Felsing is a Métis interdisciplinary artist from Northern Alberta, Canada. Her practice explores the interconnectedness of all life on Earth and aims to bring awareness to the necessity of caring for the Earth and all living beings. Felsing’s material practice and research are approached with ‘two-eyed seeing,’ with one eye looking through a lens of Indigenous teachings and the other through a lens of Western knowledge. Traditional plant harvesting is at the core of her practice, and Felsing collects the likes of roots, leaves, berries, petals, spruce tips and pine needles to create compostable paintings, sculptures and blankets that speak to the necessity to honour and show gratitude for the gifts provided by Mother Earth.

Julie Andreyev is an artist-activist, researcher and educator in Vancouver, located on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territories of the  xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, as well as the unceded traditional territories of nonhuman animals and plant life including bears, deer, raccoons, eagles, ravens, crows, hummingbirds, cedar, fir, salal and others. Her multispecies studio called Animal Lover explores more-than-human creativity to develop kinships with local lifeforms and ecologies. She is currently working on creative co-productions with birds (Bird Park Survival Station), and sound art experiences within old-growth forest ecologies (Branching Songs). She has a PhD from Simon Fraser University, and is Associate Professor in the Audain Faculty of Art, Emily Carr University of Art + Design where I teach New Media + Sound Arts, and Critical Studies. Her work is supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She loves hiking with her canine companions Zorra and Heroe, paying attention to the liveliness of the animals, trees and plants, and Earth forces. Her book is Lessons from a Multispecies Art Studio: Uncovering Ecological Understanding & Biophilia Through Creative Reciprocity. Intellect Books for University of Chicago Press, 2021. www.animallover.ca