Can you believe things got so busy we never even told you about our super cool, first-ever Biodiversity Bike Jam? The weather was perfect, the vibes immaculate, and the ducks stole the show!

We met up on our bikes on a gorgeous Saturday morning at Jaipur Bridge near Eau Claire Plaza, our devices loaded up with the iNaturalist app & ready to learn from each other & the world around us about Calgary's Downtown Biodiversity (& there's more than you'd think!)

Along with us for the kickoff was our awesome new friend, Tish Forteath of Soil Joy to tell use a little about the value of living Soil, Compost and all the LIFE you can find in the earth itself if you know how to look! Also with us for the kickoff were two members of the Hub's Headwaters Protection and Restoration team. Water is life and Albertans face a water crisis. We need to reinstate the Coal Mining Moratorium, stop polluting & more!

Along with us for the ride was Hub friend Maskwasis Boysis who gave us some much appreciated Indigenous perspective on the flora, fauna and history of the region. He does a lot of really great stuff on a number of important things here in Calgary & we look forward to working with him again soon! We should also send a special shout-out to our longtime friends at Bow Cycle E-Bikes down at River Walk Plaza in East Village for co-sponsoring this event & hooking up Maskwasis with one of their wicked e-bikes!

Our last pre-event step was to make sure everybody had access to the iNaturalist app because this was, after all, a CitizenScience adventure! Biodiversity shots sent via the app gets real data to Canadian nature scientists, thanks to Canadian Wildlife Federation & the BioBlitz! And honestly, if you're a NatureLover and don't have the FREE iNaturalist app yet, GET IT! You'll THANK US! ClimateLens podcast host and Bike Jam co-lead Bentley is ADDICTED TO IT!!!

It was a beautiful day and pound for pound is there a more beautiful place or way to spend it than at Prince's Island Park in Calgary, on bikes with new friends? Possibly, but this was PRETTY COOL, OK?!? (also check out Hub pal Merv's totally RAD refurbished old school set of wheels!) As mentioned the ducks stole the show at a few stops along the way, the little show-offs. THAT WE ABSOLUTELY LOVED (by the way, none of us fed ducks. Ducks are pretty great at finding their own food which is actually good for them as opposed to human food which isn't for a number of reasons).

Our friend & event series partner Celia Lee of Sustainable Calgary told us to be on the lookout for both a Beaver Dam AND Beaver Lodge on the island and explained the difference for those of us that didn't know (ahem).

We spent about half of our time at Prince's Island then hopped on our bikes and swooped down the bike paths  along the Bow River, snapping a few shots along the way to equally gorgeous St Patrick's Island STARRING the Osprey nest atop the Bloom art installation there!

Event co-lead Carolyn Fisher is a very talented children's book writer & illustrator who also uses her talents for advocacy on behalf of the natural world, which we were able to include in the tour & afterwards, for bites and drinks with attendees & volunteers at the Palomino! Other event co-lead Bentley displays some of Carolyn's art/advocacy here as well, in this case the endangered Bull Trout, native to Alberta & under great threat from new coal mines & logging (as are we all). Find out more about Carolyn's work at her website: www.carolynfisher.com

We had so much fun. We met new friends, got good exercise and lots of fresh air. But you know what else we did? We added to something bigger than ourselves, something necessary. And that's a whole other kind of feeling good. 

THIS JUST IN: we got feedback from a cool group called Speak For The Trees that was able to use our data for their ecosystem support work! I mean... that's just straight up COOL, right?!?

Special thanks to the City of Calgary for grant funding that enabled us to do some really fun outdoor events in the Calgary downtown. The downtown is for YOU. Your city and the Hub are always looking for more ways for YOU to get out there & enjoy it! 

And that was the Biodiversity Bike Jam! More cool events just like this one coming throughout 2026-2027!

WATCH THIS SPACE!!!