It’s the middle of the week and the sound of children playing at the John Janzen Nature Centre echoes throughout the facility. The kids run throughout the Tegler Discovery Zone, which makes up part of the centre’s space. Some kids climb through a giant bee hive, while others stash pretend acorns in a squirrel’s midden, aka an underground storage area.
Curtis Faryna, Natural History Interpretation Program Coordinator at the Centre, is happy to see kids participate in play in a way that incorporates local habitats. He says many parents say it’s one of the cheapest options for indoor playgrounds in the city.
But Faryna — who’s worked at the centre since 2012 — admits that he’s noticed the John Janzen Nature Centre is fairly unknown compared to other City-run facilities. “We’re literally tucked away in the woods, and we’re in the shadow of Fort Edmonton Park,” he says.
During the summer, when the Centre conducts day camps, caregivers are often confused on where to go. Curiers are forever taking packages meant for the Nature Centre to Fort Edmonton Park right next door. For a while, though now it’s been updated, even Google Maps stated the Nature Centre’s location was inside Fort Edmonton Park rather than right beside it.
“But once people find out about it, we get a lot of repeat visitors, we get more memberships. Sometimes their initial motivation is the playground… but then things build upon that and they see the activities, day camps and the nature walks,” says Faryna.
And there are many, many activities that happen throughout the year, from daily drop-in programs with nature themes to day camps during the spring and summer to programs that align with school P.D. days — along with group programs, bug hunts and nature walks. It’s all run by nearly 30 interpreters who also work at the Muttart and the John Walter Museum.
Every morning, except for Wednesdays, John Janzen runs a program called Nature Nook, where kids partake in structured activities planned around a nature-inspired theme. Then, on Wednesdays, it’s Nature’s Mini Movers, a drop-in program where kids and adults dance or go through obstacle courses and participate in all kinds of creative nature activities. Along with these formal drop-in programs, interpreters also set things up on the fly, says Faryna.
“Over the holidays it was busy so we opened up the classrooms to be additional play spaces. And we have things like fort building kits or these foam blocks and rods and things that you can just put together and imagine or whatever you want them to be,” he says.
School and group programs, says Faryna, can range from dinosaur adventures to one about Peter Rabbit’s birthday party. These programs involve time for playing in the Tegler space, and time for learning about things like pollinators, or mammals or birds. Kids are introduced to all kind of nature-related facts in a way that feels like play. There’s a program called Stalking and Tracking where kids can match animal scat with the tracks of the animal that produced it — which kids always love, laughs Faryna.
Birthday parties are huge hits. Faryna says the Centre averaged 30 parties per month in 2024, so and it decided to open up evenin slots so it could accommodate even more.
There are several rooms in the basement of the John Janzen Nature Centre that give a glimpse into the amount of work and thought that goes into the programs Faryna just described. One of the rooms has a sign on it that says the Bug Lab. There are a few plants hanging from the ceiling along with plants growing in aquariums, but they don’t look well cared for. Leaves are brown and falling off and Faryna says that’s intentional. The less he tends to the plants — many of which are cast-offs from the Muttart Conservatory — the more bugs he’ll get. He painstakingly raises ladybugs and other insects.
Faryna walks back upstairs and into the exhibit room where the Centre houses several animals. All of the creatures, Faryna says, come from the zoo.
We walk past a zookeeper, who comes from the Edmonton Valley Zoo every day to care for the various animals at the John Janzen Nature Centre. Faryna asks her about the snakes and salamander that are scheduled to arrive soon. The snakes, she says, have worms that are currently being treated at the zoo and the salamander — if all things go well — will arrive next week.
Faryna walks behind the exhibits and points out the axolotl, an amphibian made popular with kids after appearing in the popular video game, Minecraft. It thrives in cooler temperatures so the tank is equipped with a device to cool the water. The new northern leopard enclosure has just been set up, as well.
Even something simple like observing these animals can really inspire kids to pay more attention to their natural surrounds, Faryna says. And that’s what he loves.
“Maybe I was just destined to be a nature person or something, because I was always just in my backyard, and turning over rocks and stuff,” says Faryna.
He grew up in Mill Woods before the construction of the Anthony Henday. There were forests and big fields of alfalfa to explore where he chased snakes and spent hours walking through the woods. It feels good now to share that sense of wonder with the next generation.
Gain a new sense of natural wonder, pretty much anytime of year, at the John Janzen Nature Centre.
