Delta Forces

Can nature and development coexist on the Fraser River Delta, the ecological hot spot that’s home to ever-expanding Metro Vancouver?

- Margaret Munro

THOUSANDS OF SNOW GEESE rise in a swirling white cloud and a wave of guttural honking rever-berates across the Alaksen National Wildlife Area, a 349-hectare patch of wetland, woods and fields on the Fraser River Delta about 35 kilometres south of downtown Vancouver. Of the 54 national wildlife areas in Canada, Alaksen is one of only 10 open to the public, making it, as the federal government says, a great place to connect with nature — and on this crisp December morning, with a breeze blowing in from the sea, it lives up to that billing.

Black-crowned night herons hunch in bushes along the edge of a slough, sand hill cranes drop from the sky between fir trees and a shape-shifting cloud of dunlin streaks by in the distance. Raptors are here, too, reigning over the marsh. Four bald eagles are on patrol scaring up ducks, a pair of northern harriers floats low over a sea of bulrushes and a hawk swoops down to perch on a driftwood stump in the tall undulating grass. “It’s a rough-legged hawk hunting for Townsend voles,” says Anne Murray from her position atop a dike, binoculars up for a better look.