Hyde Creek Education Centre & Hatchery
The Hyde Creek Education Centre and Hatchery includes historical displays of the Hyde Creek watershed, a fish culture display with live fish from the creek and its tributaries, and a teaching classroom to educate the general public on stewardship values. The grounds are naturescaped so that they, too, are a part of the education facility.
Click on the image below to see views of the upstairs Education Centre.
Hatchery
The Hyde Creek Watershed Society operates a small scale Salmon Hatchery that collects Chum and Coho eggs. The Chum eggs are collected for the DFO Salmonids in the Classroom Program where the eggs are hatched in local school classrooms by students for educational purposes. The Coho eggs are collected to repopulate Hyde Creek and the associated watershed on Burke Mountain. Approximately 25,000 Coho and 15,000 Chum are raised each season.
Education
Our site has a classroom for tours and programs, interpretive grounds with native plants that demonstrate the benefits of “Naturescaping” practices, and an off-channel rearing and demonstration pond. See our Programs page for educational opportunities.
Murals
An initiative started in 2008 to have all four external walls of the hatchery covered in murals that depicted local riparian and watershed scenes is now complete. With our requirement that each wall represented the changing vistas of one of the four seasons, Vancouver artist Kim Hunter has created landscapes so real that visiting school children and adults alike are amazed. When you look at the photos below, we think you will agree!
As of August 2011, all four walls now depict local Fall, Summer, Spring and Winter vistas - thanks Kim!! Special thanks to Westminster Savings for sponsoring our Fall Mural; to VanTelSafeway for sponsoring our Summer Mural; and to a kind Anonymous Donor who sponsored our Spring and Winter Murals. Click here for a YouTube video of Kim designing and painting our Winter wall!
July 2012 Kim completed our last mural, which is in the stairwell to our upstairs Education Centre classroom. We are currently looking for a sponsor for this mural depicting our interaction with the school children and salmon release. Contact us for more information on sponsoring this mural.
The existing mural walls have been integrated as an extremely valuable aid in our school and community group education programs. Dedicated volunteers developed question work sheets, so our visitors can find and identify native fish, animals and birds along with fauna and flora depicted on each mural. The murals have proven to be very effective educational tools with our school and other group visitors.
Click on the image below for views of the building and surrounding area onsite.
