Certain workplaces are so naturally beautiful that visiting them is enough to make one reconsider career paths. Stand atop Whistler Mountain. See if your thoughts don’t turn to enjoying this vista every day as a ski patroller. Explore the necklace of islands in the Fraser wetlands around Delta and you’ll feel the same impulse. Who wouldn’t want to be employed as a field worker at Westham Island’s Alaksen National Wildlife Area near Ladner, home to Environment Canada’s Pacific Wildlife Research Centre?

In Alaksen’s case, a home features large in its desirability rating, both as an office space and a reception centre. Upon arrival, visitors must sign in on the second floor of the sprawling former country residence of Vancouver businessman George C. Reifel. Never has registering been such a pleasure. Check out the brass relief of a golden retriever mounted above a whitewashed fireplace festooned with dried wildflowers. Pick up a trail map.

On your way outdoors, size up the three-storey observation tower that juts above the estate. If you worked here, this is where you’d want to take lunch while gazing west across the open waters of Roberts Bank toward Vancouver Island. Dave Smith, Alaksen’s protected-area manager, admitted to the Georgia Straight that he’d like to install a Web cam in the tower. “In winter, you can see thousands of snow geese in the fields from up there.”

The next best thing to a job at Alaksen is simply dropping in and wandering the network of shaded dike trails that spiral through the extensive mixture of agricultural lands, forests, hedgerows, and old field habitat. Take 15 minutes and walk out to the mouth of the Fraser River’s south arm, where Westham and Reifel islands conjoin amidst a patchwork of low-slung companions. Keep in mind how far the Fraser has flowed to reach this point: 1,375 kilometres. A sense of ultimate release permeates the atmosphere. As Barry Lopez wrote in River Notes: The Dance of Herons: “It is to the thought of the river’s banks that I most frequently return, their wordless emergence at the headwaters, the control they urge on the direction of the river, mile after mile, and their disappearance here on the beach as the river enters the ocean. It occurs to me that at the very end the river is suddenly abandoned, that just before it’s finished the edges disappear completely, that in this moment a whole life is revealed.”

Right now, before buds become full leaves, much is revealed in the branches of towering trees that anchor Alaksen’s shoreline and backwater sloughs. Massive, twiggy nests stand out against the open sky just as plainly as the silhouettes of red-tailed hawks or even a great horned owl that recently relocated from the adjacent George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary. Unlike in the sanctuary, you’re not likely to meet another soul during an hour or two spent walking the property. In large part, this is because Alaksen keeps business hours. The wildlife area’s gates are closed on weekends. Although cycling is restricted beyond the parking lot, paddlers are welcome to launch from there into Ewen Slough and venture out into the Fraser delta. Whatever your approach, this wild place is big on quiet contemplation, whether while swinging one foot in front of the other or silently dipping an oar.

Alaksen sits on a fingertip of the Fraser’s outstretched palm. To see where the river’s edges disappear completely, walk the dike that curves like the arc of time around the mainland at Brunswick Point. From this vantage point, Westham Island lies on the mountain side of Canoe Pass. In the middle distance beyond the open farm fields, Lombardy poplars and cottonwoods demarcate Alaksen—Coast Salish for “a flat piece of land facing seaward”. Farther north, the Coast Mountains spread like a panoramic postcard all the way from the Sunshine Coast to Maple Ridge. With the exception of the San Juan and Gulf islands’ low profiles, mountain ranges surmount the skyline on all sides.

Wide and hard-packed, the dike trail runs south around Brunswick Point and eventually leads to the Roberts Bank Superport Causeway, more than an hour on foot, half that by bike. Benches and driftwood logs offer perches for shorebird sightings while you sip from a Thermos. Shelter is scarce. The spectacle of eagles mating high in the impossibly wide sky may cause your heart to open like the river to the ocean as the pulse of spring’s renewal is revealed aloft.

Access: Westham Island and Brunswick Point lie 38 kilometres south and west of Vancouver. Take Highway 99 south to Highway 17 south (Exit 28), just past the George Massey Tunnel. Follow the signs into Ladner where Ladner Trunk Road (48th Avenue) blends with 47A Avenue and River Road West. Several kilometres along this diked road on the north side, past float houses and marinas, is a one-lane wooden bridge leading to Westham Island and the Alaksen National Wildlife Area. Hours are from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, except holidays, when the wildlife area is closed. Brunswick Point lies 2.5 kilometres west of the bridge on River Road. Park beside the cul-de-sac where a gate blocks vehicle access. Plan to travel at off-peak times, when the Ladner and vicinity network of islands and dikes is easily reached in 20 minutes from the Oak Street Bridge.