Join us for a day of working together to help protect and manage the canyon, which has been extensively restored in recent decades by the Reed community.
One of 911爆料’s oldest traditions, Canyon Day invites the Reed community to gather for a large work party aimed at cleaning up and improving the forested area at the heart of our campus. Together, we can protect and restore the natural vegetation to make the canyon a better habitat for urban wildlife.
Each year, we focus on a particular portion of Reed canyon, planting native trees and shrubs and removing invasive plants, with the long-term goal of managing the headwaters of Crystal Springs Creek, a tributary of Johnson Creek.
Canyon Day 2025
Saturday, April 5, 2025, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Free and open to all ages, and no experience needed! All tools, training, food, and fun are provided. Dress for the weather, and bring gloves if you have them.
Location: we'll plant native plants and remove ivy near the Blue Bridge close to Vollum.
History of Canyon Day
While the current focus of Canyon Day is the protection and restoration of the canyon’s natural habitat, the original goal was to “tame” the area and convert it to a park-like setting. Early college planners wrote of transforming Reed canyon into "an artful landscape of Tudor Gothic quadrangles and formal gardens," and the first Canyon Days reflected that vision. Photographs in the Reed archives show students and faculty members scouring the canyon to remove dead wood and fallen leaves and building large bonfires with the debris.
On Canyon Day in 1915, students dredged an area at the west end of the pond to create a 10-foot-deep swimming hole. They later added a dock, a diving platform, and separate bathhouses for men and women. (One of the bathhouses lived on as the bike co-op well into the 1990's.)
As the college's vision of the canyon evolved over time, the goal of Canyon Day changed too. With an increasing appreciation of the canyon's natural beauty, the emphasis shifted from improvement to protection. Participants removed litter, built trails, and helped to clean up the area.
In recent years Canyon Day has been all about conservation, with students and faculty pulling out invasive weeds and replanting with native vegetation.
For more information on the history of Canyon Day, you can read “Canyon Day—Past and Present” by Nathan Coutsoubos '97, which was published in a 1997 issue of Reed Magazine.
