Organizers estimate that about 80 to 100 people gathered Sunday, Oct. 28 in the forest known as McLellan Park East in the Glen Valley area of 91原创 to hear from artists, musicians and writers.
鈥淲e were really happy with the turnout and response to this remarkable forest,鈥� said poet and 91原创 resident Susan McCaslin.
鈥淓veryone who visits says it is obvious that 91原创 should not sell this forest for development 鈥� you cannot get something like this back easily.鈥�
A local group known as WOLF has been given until Dec. 17 to raise $3 million to keep the 25 acres from being sold for development.
Artists came from 91原创, White Rock and New Westminster for the event.
Two 91原创 Fine Arts School students, James Tebutt and Duncan Lee, performed a humourous song they wrote for the occasion, in which one took the role of those wanting to protect the forest and the other took the role of Township councillors who want to sell it off.
Speakers included Trinity Western University professors David Jordan, a dendrologist (tree ring expert) and Erica Grimm, a visual artist.
Joe Foy, national campaign coordinator for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, told the crowd that he was born and raised on a chicken farm in 91原创 and knows the significance and rarity of these remnants of older forests.
鈥�91原创 councillors are giving you a false choice 鈥� either you sell off this forest or you don鈥檛 get a community centre.
鈥淭hat is like Vancouver residents being told that they can either keep Stanley Park or get needed repairs to St. Paul鈥檚 Hospital.
鈥淰ancouverites would never accept that, and neither should the citizens of 91原创,鈥� said Foy.
On Thursday, Nov. 15, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., several senior classes from 91原创 Fine Arts School are heading to McLellan forest to view, perform, photograph, write, draw, sing and dance to honor and experience a local space that is on the development block.
The event has been organized by students and faculty and will include a choir singing in the forest.
For anyone who would like to visit, tours of the forest are available at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, leaving from the trailhead on 257A Street, just north of 84 Avenue.
