2025 is the 20th anniversary of events in The Boreal Poetry Garden in Portugal Cove.

To celebrate, Marlene Creates and Paula Courage will guide 4 night walks in the boreal forest just for girls and women.

Wednesday July 9 and Thursday July 10 at 8:30 pm (NDT)

in conjunction with the Night of the Birds Shed Feathers Full Moon

Friday August 8 and Saturday August 9 at 8:00 pm (NDT)

in conjunction with the Night of the Berry Ripening Full Moon

• Limited to 25 people.
• Advance registration is required. 
• Please indicate which evening you wish to attend by emailing: Marlene(dot)creates(at)nf(dot)sympatico(dot)ca
• General $35 | students & seniors $25 | girls age 12 & under $15 – Cash only, thank you.
• Please bring a flashlight.

Many people find it eerie and intimidating to be in the forest after dark. Our aim is to create an aesthetic and embodied collective experience that will help overcome any such fears because walking in the woods under the night sky is very atmospheric and affecting.

Words to light the dark: Marlene Creates will read poems about the moon that she has written and some that were written by other women poets.  

Paula Courage is a certified Forest Therapy Guide and a certified Life Coach. She will facilitate multi-sensorial activities in order for the participants to engage with nature at night.

The Boreal Poetry Garden was established in 2005 by environmental artist Marlene Creates. It is an independent outdoor venue for creative gatherings for the arts and the environment in six acres of old-growth boreal forest traversed by the Blast Hole Pond River in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland/Ktaqmkuk, Canada.

Since 2005, over 1,200 visitors have attended multidisciplinary events here, including 300 local elementary school children who drew memory maps immediately following their guided walks.

News!—Memorial University Press is planning a hybrid art book based on the events that were held in 2024 for school children. This publication will bring together photo-documentation of the site-specific performances by various artists that the children experienced, reproductions of memory maps they drew, and substantial essays by artists, authors, scholars, and educators in Newfoundland, Ontario, British Columbia, and England, with the very welcome assistance of ArtsNL, the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council.

. . .

Working with the land and the water, Marlene Creates acknowledges that she lives and works on the island that is the unceded ancestral homeland of the Beothuk and Mi’kmaq peoples. With her work, she strives to create meaningful relationships between people and place, while honouring over 8,000 years of stewardship of the provincial territory by a succession of Indigenous people.