Back in the mid 90s, what is now called Metro Vancouver began buying up marsh, bog and abandoned farm land along a stretch of the Fraser River in Surrey a little east of the Port Mann Bridge.  Eventually they got all the flatland lying north of the Fraser Heights neighbourhood that was bounded by a rail line, close to one thousand acres in all.  They called it a park - Surrey Bend Regional Park.  But few people knew about it, and it seems those that did, kept that info to themselves.  It helped that the train tracks and a moat-like ditch limited access.  But it's really quite easy to get into. 

It's going to become even easier as various park facilities get built in the next while.  But I decided to see what I looks like now and ask the people who currently use it what they think about the changes that are coming.  Surrey Bend

Now here's a bit of detective work for you to work on.  B.C.'s Lieutenant-Governor, Steven Point, was walking along a Victoria beach last year when he came across an old log.   Someone had obviously been working on it - trying to carve it into a canoe.  But from all the wear and tear and rocks embedded in it, the job had clearly been abandoned decades ago.

Point's friend Tony Hunt - who knows his canoes - suspects it has been bouncing about from beach to beach for 50 years.   Together, they are making an amazing carved canoe from the old relic and that is the subject of this story. 

But, it makes you wonder who worked on the old log first?  50 years is a long time, and probably the only people who would have had the skill to make a cedar canoe back then were First Nations carvers.  But which one?  And how did it get lost?