Twenty hearty souls turned out to enjoy the GaLTT 3 Gates Walk on March 4th. The walk looped through “Stump Farm”, now part of Coats Marsh Regional Park. Stump Farm has a colourful history going back to Gabriola’s “hippie” days and is currently home to a unique feature in Gabriola’s parks, a bat box. The group stopped to admire Coats Marsh, noted for its waterfowl, before returning to the walk start location.
Prior to its designation as a Regional Park, Coats Marsh RP was a parcel of farmland owned by the Coats family. Recognizing the significant conservation value of the property, the family donated half the value of the current Coats Marsh RP parcel to The Nature Trust of BC (TNT) through the Environment Canada Ecological Gifts program. The Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN), in turn, agreed to purchase the remaining 50% of the property.
