The Ruby Lake Lagoon Nature Reserve is a 10 hectare reserve featuring a freshwater lagoon and forested acreage on the Sunshine Coast, northwest of Vancouver. The purpose of our Society is to preserve and enhance the natural habitat and wildlife of the Ruby Lake Lagoon, to facilitate local environmental education and to assist in monitoring the ecological health of the region. We built and operate the Iris Griffith Interpretive Centre, provide diverse public education programs and events, and conduct a variety of environmental stewardship activities on the Sunshine Coast.

Built in 2005, the 2,500 square foot Iris Griffith Interpretive Centre serves as the base for many exciting community and school programs. These include an innovative Nature School Program for elementary and secondary school students, along with interpretive programs, Workshops, Lectures and Slideshows and tours for the general community, and adult education courses for university and college students, professionals, hobbyists, and amateur naturalists. A wetland restoration project is helping to create valuable habitat for wildlife and is giving community members a hands-on opportunity to work to improve the environment. The centre is currently being retrofitted with green building elements including a water catchment system, solar electric power, green roof, and a solar water heating system to provide hot water both for in-floor radiant heating and for building hot water supplies. The Interpretive Centre houses a collection of displays and exhibits characterizing human interaction with the natural environment from the mountains down to the sea. It serves as a base for many exciting community and school programs, including children’s activities, adult education courses and workshops, guided nature walks and field trips, slide shows and lectures, public forums, and an innovative Nature School Program for children.

The Iris Griffith Nature School offers a unique learning environment where on-site classroom sessions are reinforced by extended periods of time spent in the outdoors observing a diversity of habitats and plant and animal species and recording thoughts through art, poetry and prose. Moving the classroom outdoors makes environmental learning tangible and fun, while spending extended periods of time observing and reflecting helps children to form emotional connections with nature and develop feelings of environmental stewardship and responsibility. Elementary and secondary school teachers have the opportunity to move their classrooms to the Nature School for an entire week for hands-on exploration of the Lagoon and neighbouring wetland restoration area. For the younger crowd, the Lagoonies Club operates as a weekly after school program during the school year, and as a drop in program during the summer. Kids aged 5-13 are invited to the Iris Griffith Centre to play, explore and make new friends. They explore the weird and wonderful creatures of wetlands and forests, build artistic and scientific skills, and learn to act as stewards of the environment. For more information, please visit our main website.

The Iris Griffith Centre is pleased to serve as the base for a wide variety of educational workshops led by local and visiting experts. Workshops are offered in a wide variety of disciplines related to local natural history, ecological monitoring and restoration, and sustainable living. They provide hands-on learning opportunities for community members. We also offer guided nature walks, tours and field trips starting from the Iris Griffith Centre. Led by expert local naturalists and guides, these outings enable participants to learn about local plant and animal species and appreciate the ecology of the region. The Iris Griffith Centre serves as the base for many public lectures and slide shows. Professional scientists, land managers, photographers, naturalists and artists give presentations related to the flora, fauna and ecosystems of the Sunshine Coast and local and global environmental challenges.

The Ruby Lake Lagoon society conducts many environmental stewardship projects. The Western Painted Turtle Conservation Project is dedicated to the studying, documentation and preservation of endangered painted turtles, a key treasured species on the Sunshine Coast. The Wetland Restoration Project involves the process of restoring 10-acres of wetlands adjacent to the Iris Griffith Interpretive Centre in the Ruby Lake Lagoon Nature Reserve. The Nelson Island Stickleback Project helps ensure the long-term survival of stickleback species pairs which are among the rarest, most fascinating, most threatened species on Earth. These small, freshwater fish are restricted to specific coastal lakes in British Columbia’s Georgia Basin and found nowhere else on Earth. The goal of the Sunshine Coast Wetland Project is to provide the information, education and incentive to bring all segments of the community together to develop and implement a plan to conserve wetlands and maintain their precious ecosystem services on the Sunshine Coast. Our Freshwater Stewardship program is committed to helping to take care of our precious freshwater resources on the Sunshine Coast through shoreline clean-ups, restoration/habitat enhancement, and water management planning. The Sunshine Coast Wildlife Project takes action to conserve, restore and enhance wildlife habitat and implement on-the-ground threat abatement measures to ensure the survival of species at risk.