Field Trip

This week, the project I coordinate has been hosting a training workshop in watershed management, for faculty members from our Asian partner universities. Six participants arrived from Vietnam and the Philippines last weekend, so I've been busy looking after them.

Yesterday, the group got out of the classroom and had a field trip. Luckily, we had an absolutely beautiful, sunny day to head down to the Annapolis Valley. The trainees visited a bunch of sites related to their work, like the tidal power plant in the Annapolis Basin, a farm using ecological drainage methods, and a couple of research test sites measuring water quality. But most of the day was spent at the offices of the Clean Annapolis River Project in Annapolis Royal. The trainees were all very interested, as the folks at the River Project are working on things like river water quality and the viability of the local clam fishery (which has been decimated in recent years by the opening of the tidal power plant).

All that was very well, but since I'm not an environmental scientist, I was far more interested in the building in which the River Project is housed. They're in the old train station in Annapolis Royal, which was restored by a private benefactor a few years ago to its original Arts & Crafts glory. The restoration job is fabulous (there's a short account of it, with a few pictures, here), and it's wonderful to see. Apparently, of the four showcase stations built around 1914 for tourism purposes in NS, Annapolis Royal's is the only one left standing - the others were in Yarmouth (for the ferry to Maine), Digby (for the ferry to New Brunswick and the Pines Resort) and Kentville (for the old rail hotel there). The director of the River Project told me that the woman who spearheaded the restoration spent about $300,000 of her own money, as a labour of love - and now rents the building to the River Project for a mere $500 per month!