2025 Spring Tours

In May 2025, KCP hosted a West Kootenay Stewardship Committee meeting in Meadow Creek, and in June 2025, an East Kootenay Stewardship Committee meeting in Radium Hot Springs, with the option of remote attendance via Zoom for both.

Each of the attendees provided a short update on their organization’s activities using the following two questions as a guide: (1) What’s 1 item or activity that you are working on that you want to be sure others know about? (2) What’s 1 potential collaboration that you/your organization could offer, or you would like to request from others? There was also an opportunity for open discussion on current stewardship topics, which generated engaged and productive conversations.

Each morning meeting was followed by a local field tour in the afternoon. The West Kootenay field tour began at the Meadow Creek Spawning Channel, where attendees learned more about kokanee, bears and bats from Heather Gates and Gillian Sanders. The next stop was The Nature Trust of BC (NTBC)’s Duncan-Lardeau Conservation Complex, where Brenda Herbison and Gillian led discussions on rewilding including native flower meadows, and restoration of a dry exposed landscape, and Chris Bosman presented on landscape-level conservation. Finally, we visited the Argenta Slough where Brenda showed us the beavers’ wetland restoration impacts, where one section of the slough has tripled in size, and her dedicated work on the western painted turtles’ nesting sites.

In the East Kootenay, the field tour began at the Radium Wildlife Overpass, where attendees learned more about the bighorn sheep monitoring initiative from Meghan Anderson and Pam Martin with Shuswap Band. The discussion continued with a focus on building community momentum for conservation, led by Nicole Trigg with Slow Your Roll, and Mike Gray, Mayor of the Village of Radium Hot Springs. The next stop was the Dry Gulch area, where Tracy Flynn with Wildsight Invermere and Alli Banting with Wildsight Regional engaged the group with a discussion about promoting responsible recreation in the Columbia Valley.