Qualicum Beach Elementary students name Salamander Pond

The Town of Qualicum Beach is renaming a pond near Qualicum Beach Elementary after students voted to rename it Salamander Pond. Photo provided by Ashley Kuramoto.

A pond near Qualicum Beach Elementary is getting a new name after a local teacher wrote to the town council informing them that the students voted to name it Salamander Pond.

Ashley Kuramoto is an outdoor education specialist at the school as well as an author of interactive children’s colouring books that focus on different areas of Central Vancouver Island. She often takes her class to the pond.

“It's a 20 minute walk with 40 Kindergarteners,” she said. “Because I'm an outdoor education specialist, we are outside all the time, and the fact it's only 20 minutes there is amazing, the kids could spend the day there. They love it.”

But Kuramoto never knew the name of the pond.

“I looked everywhere for the name of this pond,” she said. “I asked employees that I saw working around it, I asked everyone I could think of.”

Eventually she called the town to try and get to the bottom of it.

“I called, and I talked to Bob Weir, and he's an engineer, who was like, “Oh, well, it's not a nice name.”

When Kuramoto says that Weir told her it was called Contaminant Pond she was aghast at the idea of putting that name in her book for children about the area and asked him if it could be renamed.

According to Kuramoto, Weir responded, “Well, it can't get any worse than Contaminant Pond.”

Kuramoto says that the pond is a favorite spot for her students.

“There's like any kind of bird, insect, salamander that calls this place home. So something that was supposed to keep the contaminants out of the soil and the waterways is still doing that job,” she said. “But it also flourished into this beautiful space.”

Kuramoto asked her students what they thought the pond should be called.

Qualicum Beach Elementary teacher Ashley Kuramoto is an author of interactive colouring books for children who wrote to the Town of Qualicum Beach requesting that the name of a local pond be changed to Salamander Pond after students voted to change it from Containment Pond. Photo provided.

“I brought this back to my school, and we did a school vote. So over 300 students got to vote And they chose Salamander Pond. It was a great learning lesson for them.”

After the school vote, Kuramoto emailed the mayor of the town asking if the pond could be renamed.

Luke Sales, the town’s director of planning and development, says the pond was built in 2005 to help protect vulnerable ecosystems when Laburnum Road was put through.

“The purpose when the the pond was was constructed, because it's a manmade pond, was that if there were ever to be any contamination on the roadway that contamination would be consolidated and directed to this pond, so that it didn't spill out into the adjacent natural areas, because it's a sensitive ecosystem,” he said.

Sales says the town loved the idea of renaming it Salamander Pond.

“It's neat to see the students getting involved in something like this Because over the years, they've really formed a bond with that pond. And so I think it's entirely suitable that they've given it a name, which is much more charming than the original names.”

Kuramoto didn’t know her letter to the Mayor would be discussed at the town council meeting on December 6 when councilors voted unanimously to rename it Salamander Pond and erect a sign on the location.

“When I heard that it absolutely made my day,”

Kuramoto says she is looking forward to telling the children about the decision and hopes that there can be a small event when the sign is put up.

“They are going to be over the moon, it'll be my last year's class that helped with it. But I'll go talk to them. And they're just going to feel like their voice is important. And I'm really excited to share that with them.”

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.