Saying Good Bye to Summer on the West Coast

As the rain hits the trees, and fog floats across the North Shore mountains here in Vancouver, it’s a physical imprint of the date, a September day closer to the end of the month than the beginning. A season’s change. Summer, I bid you adieu. 

Cody Delistraty recently wrote in the New York Times, “The season’s conclusion can spark a sense of loss. That might sound like an overstatement, but as with any experience that ends too soon, there’s a sense that something has been missed out on, that feelings and moments remain just beyond our grasp.”

Mr. Delistraty’s Op-Ed is about How Should We Mourn the End of Summer? A fascinating question that many of us grapple with at this time of year. The days get shorter, kids return to school and life resumes to a business-first, pleasure-second flow. The grappling also holds the weight that September isn’t really the end of summer, in fact, for many it’s the best part of summer. Though the weather doesn’t follow our lead, we follow it. 

So sitting here in a sweater, watching the rain, it’s hard not to think about what we missed out on this summer. 

Personally, I feel wonderful about my summer. I climbed mountains, plunged into rivers, paddled in the ocean and stayed up late into the night with friends. The best things about summer. Professionally, it’s juxtaposed. 

We launched a new project in Edmonton on the North Saskatchewan River, where we were greeted by a magnificent community of advocates and water lovers. This was an abundance of joy. In the spring we launched a new shellfish initiative up and down the Salish Sea. We continued to work towards creating more access to swimmable water in Vancouver and will be resuming work in the Greater Victoria area this fall. All big positives in the lens of impact on our waters. 

When I read more into the idea of “something has been missed out on”, I look at our connection with water in two of those areas. 

In Edmonton this summer, we witnessed a community, and city, that revolves around the river. We were taken paddling down it by Rocky Feroe and Eric Gormley of the Edmonton River Valley Conservation Coalition. Anyone working on environmental issues in Edmonton will know these two as the River Valley’s greatest champions. They paddle and swim in the North Saskatchewan River often. They care for it, and it cares for them back. 

Edmonton Coordinator, Alex Wong paddling the North Saskatchewan River.

Our project is to monitor water quality in accordance with recreational water quality guidelines, working with the University of Alberta’s Public Health Lab, we’ll be the first ones with this focus, piggybacking off of other great work happening by fellow NGO’s, and private utility corporations on water quality monitoring. But it was conversations with strangers on the riverbanks that left me with a feeling of absence. Several mentioned the smell of pollution as a deterrent to diving in, while others said it was a perception the river doesn’t have good water quality for swimming. This is something we’re working to find out. Then it was visiting Elk Island National Park, just outside the city. When asking a couple and their dog of where a good place was to swim, they responded, “there aren’t many swimmable places in Alberta this time of year.” I countered that our Swim Guide could change that thought. Then we drove to the next lake, and were met with a closed beach due to Blue/Green Algae. 

Alas, the perception was there, and there because there’s truth to pollution. 

In Vancouver, we worked with the Dragon Boat Society of BC to run a few kids camps through some water monitoring workshops. It was 30 degrees Celsius one day, and sweat was dripping down my face because I was lugging a large bucket of water to Habitat Island in False Creek. Why? Well, a sewer main had broken earlier that week, leading to E.coli levels tenfold the accepted for swimming. So instead of having the kids scoop samples from the ocean, we brought water from the tap, to be safe. I wanted nothing more than to jump into the water as we wrapped the workshop that day. It wouldn’t be there at False Creek though, but thankfully I biked to Third Beach on my way home. 

Edmonton and Vancouver are very different cities. On the ice, they’re a growing rivalry, and in water conservation, it could be the same. Both places are leading the way in Canada when it comes to separating their sewers, which are some of the main sources of pollution for their waters. While Edmonton holds the upper hand in NHL playoff series victories, Vancouver has the advantage in swimmable water. Rich with ocean beaches, cold rivers and creeks, and an alpine oasis a short drive, or long bike ride away. 

They’ve invested in infrastructure to prevent pollution from entering their waters, have implemented green infrastructure, and are serious about policies that adapt to the climate crisis and its worsening impacts. Big steps and showing the way for other major cities needing to do the same. Toronto, we’re looking at you. 

But these projects are decades in the making, and still decades away from completion. 

These western cities are also connected by the Federal Government-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline. It runs through, under and above the North Saskatchewan River, and comes to port in the Burrard Inlet. Two water bodies, thousands of kilometres apart, but both suffer from a lack of access for their residents and visitors when it comes to one of the most Canadian things you can do in the summer: swim. 

These watersheds and waterways were once rich in biodiversity and recreation before industry dominated the lands of our First Peoples. Swim meets brought hundreds to the shores, and shellfish harvests sustained many more, but industrial use crept further into our lives, and the coexistence of such pleasures vanished. Now, as decades have passed, and priority has been given to production, we have lost sight of the impacts accompanying pollution and its fracturing of our well-being tied to clean water. 

A recent EPA study found that across the United States, swimming, paddling, boating and fishing are estimated to account for more than 90 million cases of gastrointestinal, respiratory, ear, eye, and skin-related illnesses per year, with an annual cost of US$2.9 billion (CDN$4 billion).

The tides are shifting back though, through our work - driven by community engagement, and their willingness to get back into the water again. Swimmable cities are a growing movement around the world. In Europe, they’re proving that swimming can co-exist with industry in major port cities. The architecture firm, hcma, has the same idea for Vancouver. 

There is nothing more local than turning urban centres into climate resilient examples. That’s what swimmable cities are. They encapsulate the intersectionality of environmental stewardship, social well-being and economic prosperity. 

When it comes to this summer’s work on swimmable waters, the solution to the perception problem remains out of our grasp, but as we mourn the too early end of the season, we’ll use the fall and winter to prepare to work again.

Matt Brown is the Director of Western Watersheds for Swim Drink Fish.