2025 Raincoast Speaker Series
Under Stories
Imagine walking through an old-growth forest—the cool, damp air, the soft moss underfoot, the smell of cedar and spruce—the silence. This quiet stillness belies a frenzy of activity just out of sight. Despite being dominated by relatively few species of trees and plants, coastal temperate rainforests are extraordinarily biodiverse. The relatively low rate of decay allows for the accumulation of huge amounts of organic material, home to a teeming community of organisms… if you know where to look.
As humans, we are in the habit of looking out, looking up, looking around—but when was the last time you looked beneath your feet?
Join us and our invited experts as we uncover the incredible world of the forest floor. Learn about worms and slugs, a dizzying diversity of arthropods, fungal networks, and more! Featuring lectures from some of the world’s leading experts, this year’s Speaker Series will take you on a journey into this mysterious, hidden ecosystem.
Tune in on the Thursdays listed below for Under Stories!
January 30: Ecology and Diversity of Earthworms: Dr. Sam James
February 6: @mywildbackyard: Spencer Hoffman
February 13: Notes from the Underground: Dr. Andy MacKinnon
February 20: Spring Mushrooms:Dr. Kem Luther
March 6: Slugs & Slime: Dr. Melissa Frey
Introduction to the Ecology and Diversity of Earthworms
Dr. Sam James is an American scientist, a researcher specializing in evolutionary biology, focusing on earthworm taxonomy. James, with fellow researchers, has discovered numerous species.
Thursday, January 30th @ 7:00 pm
via Zoom
Join Dr. Sam James as he uncovers the fascinating world of earthworms, nature’s ecosystem engineers. Learn how these remarkable creatures aerate soil, recycle nutrients, and support sustainable agriculture. Discover groundbreaking research on their biodiversity, ecological importance, and the challenges they face. Travel the globe with Dr. James as he shares stories of weird and wonderful earthworms and the adventures behind his research expeditions, from local landscapes to far-flung corners of the world. Don’t miss this captivating look at the hidden heroes beneath our feet!
Dr. Sam James is a specialist in the diversity of earthworms, their classification and their evolutionary history. My interest in nature, ecology and other natural sciences began at an early age, and was maintained in spite of exposure to many other areas of learning, all interesting but none with the appeal of being in the natural world looking and finding. See more when you RSVP!
How I Capture the Secret World Beneath Our Feet
Spencer Hoffman is a documentary filmmaker with a background in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Check out @mywildbackyard
Thursday, February 6th @ 7:00 pm
via Zoom
Right outside our door lies a secret world. Thousands of tiny creatures living out complex lives that go largely unseen by human eyes. But if you know where to look, and how, you’d be shocked at the complex dramas that are unfolding in our very backyards, this very minute. Today we’re going to take a tour of some of the hidden stories that play out right under our feet. Just centimeters below the surface of what might be an unassuming patch of soil are some of the weirdest creatures imaginable, and with tools that fit right in our pockets, we can capture their stories for the world to see. What I want to introduce to you today, are some of the inner workings of the documentary filmmaking process of some of these tiny beasts, and show you how telling these stories can help save our planet’s biodiversity.
Spencer Hoffman is a documentary filmmaker with a background in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From a very young age, he found his imagination captured by the strange little things that lurked out in nature. This secret world, as he grew to call it, offered him an escape from the mundane and hustle of regular life, and became a way for him to merge his creative and scientific passions. Inspired by the likes of Steve Irwin and Jeremy Wade, his work follows him on a journey to uncover the natural world’s greatest secrets. On his YouTube channel, MyWildBackyard, he features everything from the world’s deadliest spiders to obscure insects that have never been filmed before in history. His goal is to capture the imagination of the public with the same creatures that captured his own as a child, and shift public opinions on “creepy-crawlies” to create meaningful cultural shift that will lead to better conservation of our biosphere. While sensational encounters have driven the best results, the types of animals that never fail to bring him back out into the field have always been the most strange and obscure, and have fueled a passion that takes him all over the world.
Notes from the Underground
Dr. Andy MacKinnon is a trained ecologist and environmental educator with a deep passion for the natural world.
Thursday, February 13th @ 7:00 pm
via Zoom
More species live underground than live aboveground. There’s more life, and more living, in the soil, than there is above it. And everything that happens in our world is dependent on, and to some extent determined by, what happens in the subterranean world. Our land use and management have profound, and mostly unknown, effects on this underground world. This presentation will dig into west coast soils and see who lives there, what they’re up to, and what effect their activities have in our aboveground world.
Dr. Andy MacKinnon is a forest ecologist and environmental educator with a deep passion for the natural world. His extensive field experience and profound knowledge of local ecosystems allow him to provide rich, detailed insights into the flora and fauna of British Columbia and beyond. His books are characterized by their clear explanations, vivid descriptions, and practical guidance, making them appreciated by both beginners and seasoned nature lovers alike.
Spring Mushrooms: The Other Mushroom Season
Dr. Kem Luther has been on the faculty of several universities. He began writing for non-academic readers in the early 1990s. He has written or co-written many books, see link in his bio.
Thursday, February 20th @ 7:00 pm
via Zoom
In BC, mushrooms are most typically associated with the autumn, but springtime can bring its own fungal surprises. There are fewer mushrooms around in spring days–inventories of mushrooms in this season report about a third as many species as autumn inventories. Still, spring-fruiting mushrooms can be just as exciting (and challenging) as the ones that come up in the autumn. Foragers are not left out in the spring—it’s the time for such popular edibles as oyster mushrooms and morels. This talk, which presents about two dozen spring mushrooms divided into ten different categories, will get you ready for forays in April and May, when you can enjoy both the spring flowers AND the spring mushrooms.
Dr. Kem Luther has lived in Nebraska, Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia and Ontario. He is a Canadian citizen and currently resides in Victoria, British Columbia. Kem has been on the faculty of several universities. He began writing for non-academic readers in the early 1990s. Among other books he is co-author with Andy MacKinnon of Mushrooms of British Columbia. See other books here.
‘SLIME-in’ the Pacific Northwest
Dr, Melissa Frey is the Collection Manager of Invertebrate Zoology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Washington, Seattle.
Thursday, March 6, 7:00 pm
via Zoom
With its moist and moderate climate, the Pacific Northwest provides an ideal home for a rich variety of land snails and slugs. More than 150 species of terrestrial gastropod – including both native and introduced species – inhabit this region, providing important ecosystem services throughout our forests, wetlands, parklands, and mountains. Many of these are small and inconspicuous, but even larger species are often overlooked – sometimes by even the most enthused natural historian. Come learn more about the land snails and slugs of the Pacific Northwest, from iconic banana slugs and sidebands to unique taildroppers and jumping slugs. SLIME is included.
Dr. Melissa Frey is the Collection Manager of Invertebrate Zoology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Washington, Seattle. Prior to her current position, she served asthe Curator of Invertebrates at the Royal BC Museum. Her past research focused primarily on marine molluscs, however, since moving to the Pacific Northwest, she has become increasingly fascinated by (and fond of) terrestrial gastropods. As part of her current research, she has created a community science project called SLIME Pacific Northwest, hosted on iNaturalist, to document the presence and distribution of land snails andslugs throughout the region.
