Staff at the Police Point Park interpretive centre will host a Facebook Live session Friday to show off the park.--NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN
The interpretive centre may be closed at Police Point Park, but the flora and fauna certainly don’t know that – and that’s exactly what staff want to let people know about in a Facebook Live session planned for Friday.
Park interpreter Marty Drut has kept visitors busy without seeing them face-to-face, using social media heavily. At 11 a.m. Friday he’s taking the camera outdoors with a plan to show what’s going on in the park these days.
“We’re going to focus on the first flowers that are coming out, so we don’t anticipate too much craziness,” said Drut. “But you never know, maybe I’ll be standing out there and there will be a giant bull snake that will crawl in front of me and I’ll have to show everyone.”
Drut has noticed significantly more traffic in the park due to the pandemic, a happy result of a difficult time for many affected by the virus in one way or another. His job has seen drastic change as well, now more Internet-based than in-person.
“Our whole idea of interacting with people is to do it in person,” said Drut. “All the chances of doing public programs or doing school groups was removed because of the pandemic.
“We wanted to do something … we’ve been posting regular informational items on Facebook and our webpage, we’ve tried to make them family-friendly.”
The plan is to do more of the live videos so long as the centre itself is closed to the public.
Hopefully, it encourages or at least enhances the experiences of those who visit the area.
“Especially right now, there’s no organized activities so it’s really important for people to get outside, reconnect with nature and realize even though this pandemic is going on, there’s lot of amazing and wonderful things to see outside.”
