University of California, Berkeley

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THIS WALKING TOUR is a guide to StrawberryCreek on the campus of the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley. Strawberry Creek is amajor landscape feature of the campus, withits headwaters above the UC Botanical Gardenin Strawberry Canyon. This tour covers onlythe central campus and should last about anhour. It begins at Faculty Glade, follows theSouth Fork downstream, and ends at GianniniHall along the North Fork. A map withindicated stops is located at the end of thisbooklet.

In 1860, the College of California movedfrom Oakland to the present campus site, pur-chasing the land from Orrin Simmons, a seacaptain turned farmer. Strawberry Creek wasone of the main reasons the founders choseSimmons’ tract. “All the other striking advan-tages of this location could not make it a placefit to be chosen as the College Home withoutthis water. With it every excellence is of doublevalue.” The creek was named for the wildstrawberries that once lined its banks.

The central campus at that time waspastureland and grain fields. Coast live oaks,sycamores, bay laurel trees, and native shrubslined the banks of Strawberry Creek. Threeforks of the creek meandered through the cam-pus. In 1882, the small middle fork drainingthe central glade was filled to build a cinderrunning track, now occupied by the Life Sci-ences Building Addition.

By the turn of the century, urbanization hadalready begun to affect the creek. Sewage andsilt polluted the water. The creek’s course wasredirected and confined by retaining walls. Inplaces, the creek was diverted into under-ground pipes called culverts. Development in

A BRIEF HISTORY

A TOUR OFSTRAWBERRYCREEK ONTHE UCBERKELEYCAMPUS

RedwoodSequoia sempervirens

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the Strawberry Canyon watershed increasedthe number of impervious surfaces such asbuildings, roads, and parking lots. As a result,torrents of storm water runoff during the rainyseason (October to April) dramatically in-creased flows and caused extensive erosionalong the stream. Many retaining walls androck check dams were built to curtail channeldowncutting and bank erosion. Conversely, di-minished groundwater recharge lowered thebaseflow of the creek during the dry season.Strawberry Creek was neither healthy nornatural.

Since 1987, the campus has attempted to re-store the natural quality of the creek. Fish andinsect populations have been reintroduced andare thriving. There has also been an increasedappreciation of the value of the creek to theBerkeley campus. Each year more than 3,000undergraduates take classes, ranging from bi-ology to engineering, in which the creek playsa central role. Atcertain times of theyear, student artprojects standalongside or evenin the creek itself.

Strawberry Creek can be seenabove ground at three publiclocations in Berkeley (east towest): 1) the UC BotanicalGarden, 2) UC central campusand 3) Strawberry Creek Park atBonar and Addison Streets.

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The tour begins at the 1910 Bridge near theFaculty Club. Stand above the arch of thebridge, which is dedicated to Phoebe AppersonHearst. Look at the Latin inscription and notethat the second letter is a stylized “U” carvedover an original letter “A.” The original word,selected by a classics professor, was “HANC”(for “this”). A student pointed out that thegrammatically correct word is “HUNC.” Thecorrection was finally made after the profes-sor retired!

Move down the stairs and listen to the soundof the water. This is one of the prettiest spotsalong the creek, but as you look upstream ordownstream, the scenic view is disrupted bysteam ducts crossing the stream. This type ofurban encroachment will be present through-out the tour, so you will need to use your imagi-nation to picture what the stream was like be-fore the campus grew so large.

Walk upstream alongside the creek to theFaculty Club. You will see a 5-foot-diametercement culvert opening, somewhat obscuredby ivy. The South Fork emerges here after be-ing carried some 4,300 feet underground fromStrawberry Canyon to the campus. On its way, thewater in this channel passes underneath the foot-ball stadium and across the Hayward Fault zone.

Uplifting along the fault zone created thebeautiful and precipitous Berkeley Hills just tothe east.

Over many years, movement along the faultdamaged the stadium’s sanitary sewer line.When toilets were flushed thousands of timesduring and after football games, sewage spewedinto the creek via storm drains. The guilty sewerwas repaired in 1988. What impact do you thinkraw sewage could have on the creek and theaquatic organisms that live in it?

1FACULTY GLADE

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Walk back towards the bridge along the edgeof Faculty Glade, one of the most popular openspaces on campus. The natural amphitheaterof the glade has been used for a variety ofmusical and theatrical performances over theyears. Note that Strawberry Creek forms thebackdrop for Faculty Glade, once called “Co-Ed Canyon.” There is archeological evidencethat this area was once the site of an OhloneNative American settlement that relied on thesupply of fresh water and fish in the creek.

The coast redwoods found here andthroughout the campus were transplantedfrom Mendocino in 1905. Redwoods are notnative to Strawberry Creek, although theygrow naturally in the nearby Oakland hills tothe south.

The creek area between the Faculty Cluband Stephens Hall is designated theGoodspeed Nature Area, one of threecampus nature areas along the creek.It should be noted that GoodspeedNature Area is not at all natural. Itlies in the heart of a formally land-scaped English garden! Look at the veg-etation along the creek here. There aremany pittosporums, azaleas, rhododen-drons, and other non-native ornamentalplants. There is even a single giant sequoia.Do you think the exotic vegetation in thisnature area should be phasedout and replaced with nativeplants?

The old buckeye in the northerncorner of Faculty Glade wasplanted in 1882 and hangs onwith great tenacity.

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2WATER STRIDERS

Follow the creek downstream aroundFaculty Glade. Walk past the brick bridge (theformal entrance to the old Student Union) andbehind the statue of former football coachPappy Waldorf. Stand on the small woodenbridge below and look on the surface of stillpools for fascinating insects called waterstriders. They are probably the most obviousanimals that you will see in Strawberry Creek,although dozens of other insect species liveamong the rocks and in the sediment (such asthe larvae of midges and damselflies).

The Strawberry Creek water strider isAquarius remigis. The four long legs that extendoutward from the narrow body are supportedby the tension of the water surface. The firstpair of legs is raptorial; they are used to seizefood and hold it while eating.

Water striders occasionally eat other smallaquatic animals, but mostly they feed on ter-restrial insects such as flies that fall onto thewater surface. Water striders have sensory or-gans on the ends of their legs that can detectslight vibrations and even distinguish amongdifferent kinds of prey.

Try this: Find some twigs the size of tooth-picks, and break them into fly-sized bits. Tossa bit onto the smooth surface of a pool. If theripples reach a hungry water strider, it will investi-

gate and taste the morsel before rejecting it.If you watch them long enough, you

will notice how often they mate and real-ize why entomologists consider wa-

ter striders the great “lovers” ofthe insect world!

If you’re lucky, you may see abright yellow banana slug, a rela-tive of the snail, slithering alongthe ground in this grove.

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Look upstream at the rock and concrete re-taining walls built to prevent bank erosion.High storm flows undercut the soft banks. Youwill see an innovative approach to bank stabi-lization at the next stop.

Now walk back up the stairs, turn to theright, and follow the path along the creekdownstream. Notice the small shoots at thebase of the redwoods around you; this is anexample of regeneration by stump-sprouting.

Water StriderAquarius remigis

DamselflyIshnura gemina

Banana SlugAriolimax columbianus

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Turn right onto the wide Stephens Bridge(1931), and look upstream. Hidden beneathlush vegetation are rows of redwood logs builtinto the south stream bank. This was once thesite of a nearly vertical bank that was erodingthe lawn and undercutting the bridge supports.The conventional solution to this problemwould be to install a concrete retaining wall tostabilize the bank (as you saw just upstream).Instead, a novel alternative—a redwoodcribwall—was installed.

This cribwall is one of a number of“biotechnical” bank stabilization techniquesthat combine vegetation with indigenous ma-terials such as wood or stone. These methodsallow plants and structures to function togetherin an integrated and complementary manner.They are more durable, cost-effective, and en-vironmentally compatible than concrete walls.

The cribwall slopes back into the bank in logcabin fashion. The tie-back logs (perpendicu-lar to the creek) extend 12 to 15 feet into thebank. The spaces between the logs are back-filled with soil to provide strength, weight, anda place for plants to grow. Students planted al-ders, ceanothus, wild currant, Dutchmen’s pipevine, ferns, and other native vegetation on thecribwall. Additional plant species have colo-nized as “volunteers.” By the time the logs rotout (about 50 years), the plant roots will havetaken over the structural function of bank stabi-lization.

Look down below the bridge and you’ll seea notched redwood log lying on the streambedperpendicular to the water flow. This checkdam reduces stream scour during winterstorms by breaking up the heavy flow, therebyenhancing pool habitat and creating refugia forfish and aquatic insects.

3REDWOODCRIBWALL

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Continue west down the path past thebronze pelican statue and the old Art Gallerybuilding with its beautiful WPA mosaics. Walkto the end of the parking lot and turn right.Enter the 1935 Student Glade just upstream ofSather Gate; this small amphitheater,surrounded by coastal redwoods, is a greatplace for lunch.

Looking upstream, you can see that part ofthe stream is in a concrete bypass structure thatallows high winter flows to pass quicklydownstream to prevent localized flooding. Tothe right is a small meander of the originalchannel that was restored in 1989.

Return to the parking lot and turn right ontoSproul Plaza. Walk past Sather Gate, the originalsouth campus entrance. The plaza is lined withtraditionally pollarded plane-trees (sycamorehybrids). This bustling campus hub was the siteof the 1960s demonstrations and contains Berke-ley landmarks such as Ludwig’s Fountain(named after a local dog) and the nearby FreeSpeech Movement “monument.”

4SATHER GATE

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5FISH POOLS

Follow the creek downstream and stop onthe first wooden footbridge crossing thestream. By 1989, water quality had improvedso much that native fish were reintroduced intoStrawberry Creek after a century’s absence!Fish disappeared in the late 1800s partly be-cause there was little water in it. (The creek wasdiverted and used as the campus water sup-ply!) Barriers (check dams and culverts) wereinstalled along the creek. Water quality wasdegraded by sewage disposal directly into thecreek until the early 1900s.

Three-spined sticklebacks were originallystocked but were displaced by two species ofnative minnows (California roach and hitch),stocked later. These minnows proved to be bet-ter adapted to living in the creek. The stickle-backs were flushed downstream and are nowabundant at the Berkeley marina near themouth of Strawberry Creek in the Bay.

You may catch glimpses of the small min-nows in this series of deep pools. Find a sunnypool and look down below the water’s surface.Minnows usually swim in schools and are of-ten revealed by their shadows on the gravellystream bottom.

Fish populations depend upon several fac-tors: food supply; water quality and tempera-ture; suitable pool habitat for feeding and

Three-spined SticklebackGasterosteus aculeatus

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breeding; and cover from scouring winterflows. So far, the fish have done well. Spawn-ing usually begins in May and continuesthrough the summer. If you look closely aroundthe edges of pools, you may spot the tiny fry.Look for fish in other sunlit pools as you traveldownstream from here. Misguided fish lovers pe-riodically dump non-native pet goldfish and mos-quito fish into the creek, but they are eventuallyflushed downstream during winter storms.

Follow the path downstream past the stonebridge and then across the lawn down to thecreek. The streambed here is an extensiveexample of an old stabilization techniqueknown as “hardbed.” This aggregate mix ofconcrete and rocks was poured in thestreambed to prevent downcutting of thechannel bottom. Hardbed is a poor habitat foraquatic organisms because it offers no refugefrom scouring winter flows.

Note the sun-loving green algae growing onthe hardbed. This particular species, Cladophoraglomerata, grows under high nutrient(eutrophic) conditions.

California roachHesperoleucus symmetricus

HitchLavinia exilicauda

Actual Size

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6BAY TREE BRIDGE

Continue down the path until you reach theBay Tree Bridge. Pause for a moment to relaxand listen to the melodies of the stream. Lookupstream and imagine the changing seasonsfrom rainy winters to dry summers in ourmediterranean climate. Picture the raging creekscouring the banks in the midst of a winterstorm, or the flow dwindled to a trickle duringa severe drought.

What is it about the sound of water thatmany people find so soothing? The Greek phi-losopher Heraclitus said, “You cannot steptwice into the same river.” What literal andfigurative images does this raise in your mind?

Bricks commonly found in the streambedand banks downstream of this bridge wereonce part of student cottages that lined thesouth side of the creek over a century ago.

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7GRINNELLNATURE AREA

Coast Live OakQuercus agrifolia

Leave the Bay Tree Bridge, cross the road-way, and follow the flagstone path past thefootball statue. Cross the bridge designed byJohn Galen Howard (the great campus archi-tect) and bear right. You are now entering theheart of the Grinnell Nature Area. In ad-dition to numerous redwoods,you will find manyMonterey pinesand coast live oakshere. This area re-sembles a nativeoak savannaand provides aglimpse of whatthe campus lookedlike a centuryago.

Hungry foxsquirrels,often fed bystudents, may scamper up to you.This import from eastern NorthAmerica filled an empty niche in the urbanSan Francisco Bay area because the nativegray squirrel never adapted to urban condi-tions.

Continue down what was called “lover’slane” and cross the wooden footbridge overthe main branch of Strawberry Creek. Youare now about 250 feet upstream of theentrance to the city culvert, the point wherethe stream leaves the campus. Under theredwood trees to the left is a plaque markingthe site where the 1772 Spanish expeditionstopped and described the beauty of the drygrassy headlands later named the GoldenGate. The tall buildings of downtown Berke-ley now obscure the view.

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Retrace your steps up the path, turn left onthe bicycle path, and cross the wooden foot-bridge into the Eucalyptus Grove. In 1882, thisgrove of Tasmanian blue gums (Eucalyptusglobulus) was planted as a windbreak for theold cinder running track. It is the tallest standof hardwood trees in North America and thetallest stand of this type of eucalyptus in theworld.

Why is there a lack of undergrowth in thegrove? Do eucalyptus take up the soil waterthat other plants need? Does the canopy createshady conditions too dark for other plants? Isit because they have compounds in their leavesthat prevent other plants from growing (al-lelopathy)? Or is it from people tramplingthe undergrowth?

Eucalyptus were introduced to California;they have few natural herbivores, such as thekoala bear, here. As a result, they look muchhealthier than in their native Australia.

Notice how the eucalyptus trees shed theirshaggy bark. By regularly doing this, the treesalso shed bark-burrowing insects that causedisease.

Wander through the grove and find theconfluence of the South and North Forks ofStrawberry Creek that combine to form themain branch of the stream. Follow the NorthFork upstream. Where does it go? It disappearsinto a large culvert.

8EUCALYPTUSGROVE

EucalyptusEucalyptus globulus

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9NORTH FORK

To find the creek again, head straight towardthe hills as if the stream were still open andleave the Eucalyptus Grove. Look for riparian(streamside) vegetation on the other side of thetraffic circle that has the large eucalyptus in thecenter. Follow the stream along the south (left)bank noting the beautiful vegetation includinghorsetails, bay trees, and many types of exoticplants. People have been waiting for the euca-lyptus tree leaning over the walkway to fall forthe last 40 years.

Cross the footbridge toward Giannini Halland admire the Beaux-Arts style of WellmanHall with the olive trees in front. Go pastGiannini Hall, and you’ll enter the WicksonNature Area, the last of the three campus na-ture areas. Be sure to see the ginkgo tree be-tween Giannini Hall and the creek. Planted in1881, it is one of the most treasured trees onthe campus, and it is especially exquisite withits yellow autumn foliage. One of the reasonsthat this area contains so many beautiful treesis that it was originally the site of the campusBotanical Garden. Relax for a moment hereamong the trees along Strawberry Creek. Thetour ends in this quiet glade. Please enjoy thecreek, and return to visit often.

GinkgoGinkgo biloba

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10BOTANICALGARDEN

A collection of studies on Straw-berry Creek is maintained in theWater Resources Center Ar-chives on the 4th floor ofO'Brien Hall.

You can see the headwaters of StrawberryCreek by visiting the UC Botanical Garden inStrawberry Canyon above Memorial Stadium.The creek runs through the heart of the 34-acregarden, surrounded by an impressive collec-tion of more than 13,000 types of plants. Theupper portion of the creek is landscaped withrhododendrons from China, Nepal, andBhutan and includes the serene Japanese Pool.Dawn redwoods, Chinese peonies, and otherAsian plants thrive in the moist microclimatealong the stream.

The creek also flows through the Californianative section past oaks, bays, and buckeyetrees. This area has been restored to representthe native flora along central California coastrange creeks. A wooden walkway brings youclose to many of the plants and down to a smallpool and waterfall. Above the creek on the hill-side is a deck with interpretive displays thatoverlooks the Strawberry Canyon watershed.The garden offers a quiet setting for spend-ing time by the creek. Shuttle buses run fromHearst Mining Circle to the garden at quar-ter-past and quarter-before the hour onweekdays. The garden is open every dayfrom 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. From Memorial Dayto Labor Day, the garden is open until 7 p.m.

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This 1875 map of the Strawberry Creek watershed shows the original waterworks that supplied thecampus. Note the middle fork of the creek on the central campus below North and South Halls, which wasfilled in 1882.

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THOUGHTSTO TAKEAWAY FROMTHE TOUR

You may see this symbolaround Berkeley, represent-ing the underground courseof Strawberry Creek.Quails, water striders,turtles, and other symbolsrepresent different Berkeleycreeks.

campus environment. Try to imagine what thecreek looked like a century ago when salmonstill spawned in it, or even earlier when nativepeoples used the creek or the Spanish explor-ers looked out at the beautiful vistas of the yetunbridged Golden Gate. Do you think it wouldbe a good idea to try to rehabilitate other ur-ban creeks?

Strawberry Creek is an irreplaceable natu-ral resource for both the university and theBerkeley community. The benefits of preserv-ing and enhancing the creek and its surround-ing areas are far-reaching. The creek is the ma-jor focus of campus open space and thereforeestablishes both the form and character of itslandscape. The natural areas along StrawberryCreek offer pleasing contrast to the urbanhardscape, acting as a buffer zone that providesvisual amenity and variety.

Preservation of the creek corridor is essen-tial if the unique qualities of the campus land-scape are to be sustained. This requires com-munity cooperation as well, because the wa-ters that flow through campus are affected bywhat happens upstream. For many alumni,Strawberry Creek provides some of their mostmemorable recollections of the Berkeley cam-pus. As long as Strawberry Creek remainshealthy, it can be a source of inspiration andjoy for those who study, work, or live withinits watershed.

THINK ABOUT HOW STRAWBERRY CREEK fits into the

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Related Campus Attractions

Valley Life Sciences BuildingPaleontology Museum and fossil displays

University Herbarium

Mulford HallForestry exhibits and wood specimens

Wellman HallEntomology exhibits

Hearst Mining BuildingMineral displays

McCone HallFossil and earthquake exhibits

Map Room

Kroeber HallAnthropology Museum

Lawrence Hall of SciencePublic science center and museum

This booklet was originally written by Bob Charbonneau, Stephanie Kaza, and Vincent Reshin 1990. The second edition was prepared by Charbonneau and Resh in 1999. The project wassupported by the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Strawberry Creek and produced bythe Office of Environment, Health, and Safety. Original drawings and design by Linda Cook.Printed on recycled paper. Published January 2000.