Once Upon A Time, Happily Ever After… #1

Name: Once Upon A Time, Happily Ever After… #1
Description: An audio tour of stories around Lake Merritt.
City: Oakland, CA
Duration: 120 minutes
Distance: 1.0 miles
Guide: Scott Oliver
Mode: walking
Features: audio history 
Starts at: Rotary Nature Center

Through a mixture of field recording, interviews, music and narration, the Once Upon A Time, Happily Ever After… audio tour explores the natural, social, and economic forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, Lake Merritt and its surroundings.

The tour is part of a larger, 3-part public art project by Scott Oliver. Visit the official Once Upon A Time, Happily Ever After… website.

The entire tour will take you around Lake Merritt, a bit more than 3 miles. But there’s a lot to learn at each of the stops, so for convenience, the tour is broken into three parts. The total time for all three parts is 5.5-6 hours.

Note: The audio tracks include a description of how to get to the next stop, but as with other tours on this site, there is also a button for directions via Google Maps. Some of the audio is designed to be listened to on the move.

Note to parents: Stops 5, 9, and 20 contain adult language.

More information about this tour

1. Toward Bringing Nature and People Together 🎧
2. Lake Merritt is for The Birds 🎧
3. Earth Maze 🎧
4. Lake Peralta 🎧
5. Unburied 🎧
6. Old Oaks 🎧
7. No Name Park 🎧