‘Connect the Dots’ participants arrive at the community garden on Milburn Avenue

Prince George, BC – Organizers from UNBC marked Climate Impact Day with a ‘Connect the Dots’ bike ride through Prince George yesterday…

"We’re really trying to connect the dots between climate change and impacts," said spokesperson Sonja Ostertag.  "But also showing how we’re all in this together around the world and we’re all impacted from this issue."

The event began at the Prince George Farmers’ Market with a discussion about the link between food systems and climate.  Ostertag said local food systems are more adaptable and resilient to climate change than global ones, so the message was to continue to eat locally and support farmers’ markets.

Participants then biked to Cottonwood Island Park where UNBC Masters student, Chris Rose raised some of the issues around water quality and quantity, and climate change.  Ostertag says Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Project and its impacts on northern BC were raised, along with its impact on the global climate, with the expansion of the Alberta tar sands.

Jovanka Djordjevich of Community Gardens Prince George told participants arriving at the last ‘dot’ on their journey – the community garden at Milburn Avenue and Redwood Street – to ‘slow down and be observers’ in order to make connections between climate change and its local impacts.

"And it’s about not fighting everything," said Djordjevich.  "The biggest fight we have here in this garden is quackgrass.  (And) it’s about trying to work with what we have, that means embracing quackgrass."

She admitted the garden looks ‘messy’ at this time of year, but said community garden members encourage people to ‘leave things stand’ – beneficial insects depend on all that mulch and not on exposed soil.

"Take a look at nature, when do we have exposed soil?  When we have a mudslide, or clear-cutting, or some devastation – that’s when we see clear land," she said.  "We shouldn’t be allowing exposed soil."

Djordjevich joked that quackgrass smoothies could become the local rival to pressed wheatgrass.  She said garden volunteers try to figure out how to work with nature.