Natasha Boyd
Fraser Headwaters Alliance

Born Natasha D. Smith in Sussex, England, in 1906, Natasha Boyd moved to North America with her sister and mother in 1912. Boyd earned a master’s degree in paleontologyfrom the University of California at Berkeley in 1938. She settled in the Robson Valley with her husband Carl in 1973. She devoted much of her time to painting wildlife in its natural habitat. She was active in the Blackwater Producers Cooperative and helped establish the McBride Arts Council.

The Natasha Boyd Wetland Conservation Area comprises 65 hectares (160 acres) of low lying wetlands and upland forests. The woodland area, which is made up of paper birch, trembling aspen, white and black spruce, lodgepole pine and western red cedar, surrounds clusters of inter-connected wetlands. The wetlands include bogs (areas with deep, nutrient poor, acidic soils), fens (more nutrient rich areas with deep peat soils vegetated by sedges and grasses), and shallow open waters.

More information is available at Fraser Headwaters Allliance and the Land Conservancy of British Columbia.