Swan Lake: A Vital Urban Sanctuary

By Cara Gibson, the Executive Director of Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary, a Hosted Organization with the Victoria Foundation.

Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary Society is celebrating 50 years of service as a community hub for sharing nature conservation and stewardship in 2025. Located just 6km from downtown Victoria, BC, the Nature Sanctuary’s 170 acre footprint represents 10% of Saanich’s natural park area and includes a lush wetland, wildflower-rich oak meadows and critical migratory bird habitat. This site is also home to ~10% of the District’s rare, threatened, and endangered biodiversity, including one of the last breeding populations of Western Painted Turtles.

In contrast to other urban parks, the lands and waters at Swan Lake are zoned for conservation. This means that our main focus is protection and care of native plants and wildlife. Despite this, the Nature Sanctuary offers spectacular, accessible infrastructure that ensures city residents have a welcome place to find peace; with an added advantage of programs to expand appreciation and awareness of nature just a short trip from everyone’s front door!

Indigenous Guidance

Lekwungen speaking peoples of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations have stewarded these lands and waters for millenia. In the past four years, we are grateful to have developed multiple lines of support to build Indigenous guidance into our daily operations and educational offerings. This work recently led to our receiving Key Biodiversity Area status through a national program that looks holistically at species conservation as well as eco-cultural values. As we continue to renovate the Nature House and our programs, we are using a Two-Eyed Seeing approach that respectfully weaves Indigenous and Western ways of knowing throughout our work.

Now, Then, and Long Into the Future

By 2050, 70% of the world’s population will be living in cities. We are thankful to the forward-thinking of the Nature Sanctuary Society’s founders who knew back in 1975 that a central place for practical learning would be crucial for climate change resilience and biodiversity conservation. Presently, over 70,000 people explore our recreational trails, 10,000 people visit our educational Nature House, and 17,000 learners engage in our programs each year with hands-on, environmental education that supports the plants and people of this place.

Over the last five decades, many of our volunteers, summer students, and learners in our programs have gone on to contribute to other significant regional organizations and projects. The first groups of E.C.O – (Educating Children Outside) – preschool students that we host on site, are now enrolling their own preschool-aged children in this same inspiring program. For the future, we are strengthening and building collaborations with local schools, the CRD, Victoria Native Friendship Centre, Inter-Cultural Association, Peninsula Streams, Special Bird Service, Satinflower Nurseries and others, to maintain momentum, and create more open, inclusive programming. Some current examples of our offerings include: Adopt A Patch, Native Plant Workshops, weekly restoration learning opportunities, tours and self-guided activities in the Nature House gardens.

Now in our 5th year as a Victoria Foundation hosted organization, we are excited to be building our endowment fund with an eye to the next 50 years; continuing our work as an anchoring place for community in service of deep care for nature.

Join us

We are celebrating another exciting milestone in 2025 – our Annual Native Plant Sale turns 30. This event has offered Vancouver Island’s largest selection of native plants for decades, and was the first to enable local gardeners to participate in rewilding their yards at a larger scale. This practice reduces homeowners’ overall costs, effort, and water use, while providing more peaceful silence and meaningful habitat for pollinators and other wildlife. We hope to see you at the April sale or in our programs!