The Peterborough Field Naturalists (PFN) is celebrating its 85th anniversary in 2025, and will be kicking off the year-long celebration with a meeting at The Canadian Canoe Museum on Thursday (January 9).
Open to PFN members only, the meeting will feature exhibits from the club’s archives, a slideshow of club activities, a presentation from The Canadian Canoe Museum’s exhibits project coordinator MaryJane Proulx, and special guest Janet McCue, an Elder from Curve Lake First Nation Elder and lead vocalist and drummer of the Wshkiigamong Women’s Hand Drum Group.
“We are proud of the role the Peterborough Field Naturalists have played in fostering a love of nature over the past 85 years,” says PFN president Sue Paradisis in a media release. “Looking to the future, we hope to instill in our members and the broader community, the fundamental importance and value of the natural environment.”
The origins of PFN go back to the mid-1930s, when a group of Peterborough-area nature enthusiasts began hosting field outings with members of the provincial Federation of Ontario Naturalists (now Ontario Nature). Although the local group was neither an organized club nor officially associated with the provincial group, the field outings continued to be held every year.
Follow the fifth such outing on May 18, 1940, the local group met in the Burleigh Falls home of Gordon Fraser, who had earlier that year been elected as MP for what was then Peterborough West riding.
At that meeting, a new organization called the Peterborough Nature Club was founded, with 32 adult members and four junior members and a membership fee of $1.
Now a volunteer-run registered charity supported by membership fees and donations, PFN has remained dedicated to fostering a deeper connection to nature for the past 85 years.
In the late 1940s, the club began publishing a bulletin which was renamed “The Orchid” in 1956 and is currently published nine times a year. Edited by club member Kathryn Sheridan and featuring 50 contributors each year, The Orchid features articles documenting the natural history of the region, trip reports, upcoming events, and numerous photographs submitted by members. Records of local bird sightings in “The Orchid Diary” are also a regular feature of each edition.
PFN members are also regularly involved in annual citizen science initiatives including the Christmas Bird Count, the Petroglyphs Butterfly Count and, more recently, the Peterborough City Nature Challenge. In the early 1990s, PFN erected three bird feeders along the trails in GreenUP’s Ecology Park near Beavermead Park. Each year from November to March, volunteers fill the feeders with black oil sunflower seeds to attract a variety of bird species for the enjoyment of visitors to Ecology Park.
Although birdwatching is the main interest of many of its members, the club also offers other activities and events related to nature, as well as the Junior Field Naturalists group which is geared for children and youth ages 5 to 12.
An annual membership in PFN costs $40 for families, $30 for adults, or $15 for students. For more information or to join, visit peterboroughnature.org.
PFN will be announcing additional events planned throughout 2025 to mark the club’s 85th anniversary.
