Leaving campus

The Main Branch of Strawberry Creek has coalesced here from its many seeps, springs, and tributaries up slope. At this location, it was once possible to gaze through the Golden Gate on a clear day. A plaque here commemorates the 1772 Spanish expedition when the beauty of the location was first described by Europeans. But this is Ohlone tribal land. For millennia, indigenous Americans fished, foraged, and profited on this landscape without breaking the Strawberry Creek ecosystem. The Spanish isolated the indigenous populations on reservations, and the land was ultimately subdivided for private ownership. The University of California chose this location for their future campus specifically because of the availability of fresh-flowing water in Strawberry Creek. There followed a century of mismanagement, with the headwaters channeled into reservoirs and the lower reaches used as an open sewer. Roads and buildings prevented the natural absorption of rainwater in winter, and flash-flooding and creek-bank erosion became an expensive hazard. Dozens of check dams were built to mitigate flow, and the beds and banks of the creeks were lined with stone and cement in an attempt to maintain control. The environmental movement of the 1960s led to a new ecological sensibility, and the Strawberry Creek ecosystem has benefited. Follow the creek as it passes through a heavy grate and disappears under Oxford Street. It will continue below Berkeley, flowing between Allston Way and Addison Street for a full mile before it sees daylight again.