OurSquamish Placemaking Society did a group walking tour of downtown Squamish on Sept. 10.
The tour, inspired by the Jane's Walk movement, led the group through various public spaces in the downtown area.
"The purpose of this specific tour, we are an organization focused on improving urban public spaces in Squamish, and we are the purpose of this tour is to do community outreach and kind of highlight two things," said volunteer Sarah Ellis before the tour began.
"One is the diversity of public spaces in Squamish. So a lot of people think of urban public spaces and immediately think parks, and parks are great and really important public spaces, but there's actually a whole other diversity of other types of public spaces that we're going to show on the tour."
"Then, we're hoping that we can also engage folks in discussions at each stop," she said.
The tour started at Junction Park and highlighted numerous public spaces such as the community garden, trees, sidewalks and the newly constructed public seating area near Cleveland Avenue and Winnipeg Street. The tour also quickly stopped at the new shelter above the bike rack downtown and the adjacent Mamquam Blind Channel boardwalk.
At each stop, participants were asked questions about what they noticed and what they believed could be improved about the area. About 10 people were on the tour overall.
Another OurSquamish volunteer, Constance Cope, said the organization started in 2019 intending to help direct growth in Squamish that supports the general population.
Ellis said that they are hoping to do monthly meetups that will be a mix of different activities as the seasons slowly change towards winter.
For more information, Ellis encouraged people to visit their Instagram page at Instagram.com/oursquamish.
