BURSTThe Revelstoke community can look forward to more comfy public places to lie and lounge, as a local entrepreneur commits to installing his signature hammock-style nets in the Illecillewaet Greenbelt.
Nathan Baril, the 28-year-old founder of Nate’s Nets, has strung up approximately 35 of his trademark TreeNets over the last two years around Revelstoke and beyond, and is set to bring three more to the woods straddling the Columbia River.
Previously employed as an arborist and high rope specialist, with a special knack for building tree houses, “I’ve always loved trees,” he told Black Press Media while elevated on a public TreeNet he built last fall in CP Hill. “I’ve always enjoyed the intersection where fun and the outdoors meet.”
READ: Holiday light installation revived for Revelstoke homes and businesses
TreeNet clients have included cat skiing companies, anglers, festivals, schools and sometimes simply private residents looking to spice up their backyards. Some of Baril’s nets have reached 25 feet high. He has also installed them in Nelson, and earlier this March, visited Toronto to set up an indoor net off a residential loft, working with clients to decide custom rates.
Baril decided to approach the Illecillewaet Greenbelt Society (IGS) earlier this winter to discuss installing TreeNets on their publicly-used recreational land, drawn by the society’s conservation values and role in recreational space.
“The greenbelt society have recognized that there’s a desire in the community to get out more,” he said.
IGS shared March 13 that it’s excited to partner with Nate’s Nets on bringing three recreational nets to its high-use greenbelt trail network, in locations that haven’t yet been revealed.
Baril’s vision is to have one bench-style net that faces out toward Mount Begbie, and another designed as a “conversation-engineering pit” that will be forest green and allow large groups to lounge and chat. A third will be built as a multi-level play-style net for children, though Baril noted all his nets are strung to be accessible for any age.
“The hope is that these TreeNets will become small but special places within the Greenbelt where people can pause, enjoy the forest, and experience the trail network in a new way,” the society posted on Facebook. “IGS is confident that Nate’s Nets takes the impact of these installations seriously and will make every effort to ensure that the work is done responsibly, with respect for the surrounding environment and with careful follow-up.”
READ: Revelstoke org’s guidebook taps outdoor rec for resilient communities
It noted that environmental stewardship is important in this project. IGS and Baril have selected net locations that avoid animal trails and ecologically sensitive areas, and also minimize impact on trees.
The rope for TreeNets, which he procures from Ontario, gets fitted with tree guards specially designed to prevent girdling around trunks and preserve a tree’s structural integrity and longevity.
“We want the trees to continue to survive so the nets can too,” he emphasized, adding he’s “taking every step possible to take the natural world into consideration.”
Baril worked with a local biologist to inspect all trees he intends to suspend nets from, and reports that he’s found no evidence of animals interacting with any of his previous TreeNets. If that ever happened, he said he’d uninstall those particular nets.
Material costs to finance the first net facing Mount Begbie have been swiftly covered by donations from Royal LePage Revelstoke and Begbie Glass. Baril has vowed to build all three nets free of charge for his labour, but “we very much want these nets to be paid for by the community and built by the community, for the community,” he said.
“It allows us to build bigger and better nets for everyone.”
Already, more than $2,400 has been raised by local residents and businesses, and Baril has prepared $1,000 in fundraiser prizes. These goodies will be distributed to community members at an online prize draw happening at 8 p.m. this Saturday, March 28.
Installing each net will require about two full days of work. Baril provides a two-year warranty for all TreeNets, should repairs be needed, “but the majority of tree nets will last 10 years or longer.”
READ: ‘Honours that legacy’: Moonlight Ski making comeback on Mount Revelstoke
To ensure IGS also benefits from his nets, he’s encouraging the community to buy annual memberships for $35 — or $70 f0r families — and will post signs promoting the society’s work to maintain the trail system.
“It’s his business and he’s doing something that’s a real public contribution, so it’s wonderful,” IGS president Roger Galbraith said.
IGS doesn’t charge visitors to access the greenbelt, Galbraith explained, so memberships offer a way for the community to support its volunteer-run upkeep and equipment costs.
“We’re up to over 300 members now, so it certainly adds to the resources that we have,” he said, adding that the society raised a remarkable $4,700 at its silent winter auction. “People were very generous.”
Galbraith noted Baril’s contribution with his TreeNets builds on IGS’s legacy of restoring and revitalizing the greenbelt for public benefit, which he said has come a long way from having no maintained trails and being used as a dumping ground in the 1980s.
Asked how soon he plans to begin net installations in the greenbelt, Baril answered that “the first net’s already been sponsored, so we’re just waiting for a nice day.”
To donate to Nate’s Nets’ greenbelt project, visit gofundme.com/f/nates-nets-public-nets-fund.