A new nature park in Walnut Grove will get its first trail for public access soon. The site is the first part of the Redwoods Golf Course to become a public park.
Township council voted to create a trail along a gas pipeline through the park, now called the Hope Redwoods Natural Area. The parcel was once owned by the Hope family, and most is still managed as the Redwoods Golf Course.
Course owner Larry Hope thanked council for naming the new park after his family, which has farmed and settled in the area since 1902. Hope recalled how his great grandfather, Alex Mavis, farmed land he had bought from the Hudson's Bay Company.
In 1888, Charles Hope arrived to work as a surveyor on the land, and found himself marrying a Mavis daughter. He bought the land around the golf course in 1902, and planted its redwood trees a few years later. In the 1950s, it passed into Larry Hope's hands.
Hope became choked up as he talked about his family and the park's name. "This is not a Larry Hope park," he said. "This is a park in Langley."
The purchase of the golf course by the Township was controversial. Eventually, all 175 acres of land there will become parkland. For now, residents will be able to access part of the seven-acre natural area, near the north end of the park.
Bob Puls, a director of the Langley Field Naturalists who have just completed a survey of the area's flora and fauna, said the site is biologically diverse for a small area. Plants there include alder, western red cedar, hemlock, maple, salmonberry, red elderberry and cottonwood, Puls said.
Many of the trees are dead, which is good for nesting birds but can be a hazard for humans. Branches and whole trees can fall and crush hikers. Wildlife incudes birds such as wood ducks and the rare red-legged frogs, coyotes and racoons.