New shoreline installations in Stratford raise awareness about erosion and climate change

Two new shoreline installations in the town of Stratford, P.E.I., are raising awareness about erosion and climate change.

One is a sculpture called Lillian's Place, created by Alexis Bulman, who is an intern with the ClimateSense program.

The other is a new living shoreline in Tea Hill Park, where native trees, shrubs and grasses have been planted to help prevent erosion.

Bulman said Lillian's Place is a sculpture, but also what she calls a collaboration with nature.

"I came up with the idea for the project, built it, and I installed it, and that's the end of my participation in the project," Bulman said.

"Now, as it ages throughout the next couple of years, how it ages is a collaboration with nature."

Bulman said bushes of wild roses, dogwood and wild raspberries have been planted around it, and the idea is that they will grow up and surround the sculpture.

"I'm hoping that in a couple of years, the sculpture will look nothing like it does now. It'll be covered in tall weeds and wildflowers and pollinators," Bulmansaid.

"It'll be grey and splintered. Maybe it'll have moss on it, and maybe the structure will be sagging and a little bit dilapidated, like barns in the country."

Inspired by Lillian

Bulman said the sculpture was inspired by a woman named Lillian, who lived in a house in Victoria-by-the-Sea, P.E.I., next to a broken seawall.

"When there was a storm surge on a full moon on a couple of occasions, the fire department came in and helped Lillian from her house, as it filled with water," Bulman said.

"I really love this story of Lillian because even though this kept happening, she continued to live there for many years. But it made me feel sad to think of water coming into her house."

Bulman said a plaque will be placed at the installation, to explain both Lillian's story and the purpose of the living shoreline around it.

"As much as people may enjoy the sculpture for its location and its esthetics, I'm hoping they'll not take it as just a symbol of why you should fear erosion, butlooking for solutions, how to prevent erosion," Bulman said.

"My hope is to come back once a season, and document how the sculpture is weathering, and aging and changing."

Spark conversations

At Tea Hill Park, the walk down to the beach has been transformed into a living shoreline.

"The bank is actually quite low to the ground, so if you get avery strong storm surge, it actually goes up quite far, which erodes it even faster," said Charlotte Large, project co-ordinator with the P.E.I. Watershed Alliance.

"Because it's quite a popular beach, we want to avoid that erosion as much as possible so that we don't end up cutting into this nice park space."

Large said the living shoreline is also designed to spark conversations around climate change.

She said using native plants to reinforce the shore, rather than concrete blocks or rocks, is a different approach to preventing erosion.

"I think a lot of people, when you think of climate change adaptation, you think you want to protect, you want to armour against it,"Large said.

"While this is adapting to climate change, it still looks nice."

There is also a new living shoreline near the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which is part of the same project.

"Using these installations in very visible areas, itgets people thinking about climate change in their own areas, what's going on in their communities, and getting people involved in whatever way you can," Large said.

Nearby at Tea Hill is a piece of art by Kirstie McCallum called Pollinator Clock, with native plants in a circle, and a sapling in the middle to represent the centre of a sundial.

"The pollinator garden will help attract pollinators, which will help our installation grow more, as well as just being very esthetically pleasing for park goers," Large said.

The installations in Stratford are part of Riverworks, which is an initiative by The River Clyde Pageant and Creative P.E.I., co-ordinated by Bulman.

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