Invisible Water/Ways is an educational campaign celebrating the waterways flowing under Greater Victoria. How can learning about the historical layers of landscape under our feet change the way we understand and care for the place we make our home?

Global Context

Cities around the world have buried waterways in hard infrastructure, removing their ability to naturally clean and filter water, to regulate climate, to support habitat, and to mitigate weather events. Green infrastructure provides ecological solutions to help address these issues and mitigate risk to our cities from extreme weather events.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration calls for the protection and revival of ecosystems around the world. This call asks cities to adopt nature-based solutions at the urban scale to restore degraded ecosystems. This decade, ending in 2030 has been identified by scientists as the last chance to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Local Solutions

Invisible Water/Ways scratches the surface of Greater Victoria’s landscape history, narrating the context and sharing information to inspire community connections and nature-based solutions. Our long-term vision is to restore ecological function to the watershed, while building community and creating spaces for people and nature in the city. This begins by expanding our understanding of the landscapes buried underneath us.

Johnson Creek

SOURCE: ARCGIS

Invisible Water/Ways launched in 2024, focusing on a creek running underneath the downtown neighbourhood, known to some as ‘Johnson’ creek. As Butch Dick describes in Signs of ləkʷəŋən, the ravine was surrounded by willow trees and berries, cutting through a meadow landscape. The waterway was lined with paths made by bark harvesters, collecting bark from the bitter cherry trees to craft household objects. This creek was a source of food and materials for the ləkʷəŋən people stewarding the region.

Although the ravine has been filled and paved over, traces of the former landscape still exist. Invisible Water/Ways has brought together archival maps and photos that help tell the story of how our city overtook the creek. We have created a walking tour that follows the path of the creek, dipping in and out of the ravine and ending where the creek still flows into the inner harbour under the Johnson Street Bridge.

This tour is available online as a story map for a self-guided experience.

Friends of Johnson Creek

We enthusiastically support the Victoria Downtown Residents Association (VDRA) in creating a Friends of Johnson Creek group. Please visit their website to learn about this group and/or join the mailing list.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

September 20, 2024 ↘

Park(ing) Day: Speak to the Creek

PAST EVENTS:

Precedents:

Many cities are in the process of revitalizing buried waterways. We’ve compiled examples, both regional and international, inviting you to imagine how waterway revitalization might take shape in your neighbourhood.

Art-Based Projects:

Rock Bay Creek Revival - Victoria BC

Channelled Buried Moved Lost – Mill Creek, Toronto ON

Ghost Rivers - Baltimore

Green Infrastructure:

Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel – Seattle, Washington

Story Mill Community Park – Bozeman, Montana

The Wild Mile – Chicago, Illinois

Wadi Hanifah Comprehensive Development Plan - Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Restoration / Daylighting:

Bowker Creek – Greater Victoria

Cecilia Creek – Greater Victoria

Esquimalt Gorge Park – Greater Victoria

Tanner Springs Park – Portland, Oregon

Boneyard Creek Restoration – Champaign, Illinois

Saw Mill River – Yonkers, New York

Mill Creek / West Philadelphia Landscape Project – West Philadelphia

Stroubles Creek – Blacksburg, Virginia

Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration Project – Seoul, South Korea

Speculative Work:

Hidden Hydrology – Vancouver, BC

Lost River Walks – Toronto, ON

The Welikia Project – New York, New York

The Copenhagen Cloudburst Formula - Copenhagen