Cape Fear Creek Week 2026 - New Hanover County Center

A web of waterways stretches across the Cape Fear area, serving as the lifeblood of our community. From winding blackwater rivers to neighborhood streams, every pond, brook, ditch, and storm drain tucked within the landscape shapes our way of life. This March, residents are invited to explore their watershed during Cape Fear Creek Week, a weeklong celebration of local creeks, tributaries, and watersheds running from March 14–21.

Organized by a coalition of regional partners—including the City of Wilmington’s Heal our Waterways program, North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Town of Leland, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, UNCW’s Office of Sustainability, New Hanover Soil and Water Conservation District, Cape Fear River Watch, Coastal Land Trust, Plastic Ocean Project, Alliance for Cape Fear Trees, Cape Fear Bird Observatory, and Mad Mole Brewing—the annual event encourages residents to learn more about the waterways connecting communities across southeastern North Carolina.

While it’s hard to miss the massive Cape Fear River while strolling Wilmington’s downtown boardwalk, Cape Fear Creek Week also includes those small creeks, wetlands, drainage systems, and stormwater control measures that form the network of a watershed. Every neighborhood sits within a particular watershed, and whatever happens on the land eventually flows downhill, affecting water quality downstream. Altogether, the Cape Fear River Basin covers more than 9,000 square miles of interconnected waterways. Hundreds of thousands of people rely on the Cape Fear River as the source of their drinking water, just as countless fish and wildlife depend on its clean water to support the food web.

Creek Week offers a chance to reconnect with your local creek and learn how your watershed fits into a larger system. Throughout the week, more than a dozen free and family-friendly events will take place across the region, including guided nature walks, kayak paddles, scavenger hunts, bird hikes, infrastructure tours, volunteer projects, and more. The festivities begin Saturday, March 14. Learn more at: go.ncsu.edu/capefearcreekweek

Residents can participate in Creek Week Bingo, completing simple outdoor challenges—from spotting wildlife to visiting a creek—to earn a chance at a prize. There are also opportunities to give back. Volunteers can help mark storm drains or join a community cleanup to remove trash before it reaches local waterways and eventually the Atlantic Ocean. Preventing polluted runoff – from excess lawn nutrients and pet waste bacteria to development sediment and roadway petroleum residues – is a shared responsibility.

In the end, the goal of Cape Fear Creek Week is simple: to help people see their surroundings differently. Everything is connected through the water cycle, and you play a major role in this process. Understanding the connection between everyday actions and water quality leads to cleaner creeks. Clean creeks mean a cleaner river, a cleaner ocean, a cleaner home planet that supports healthy communities, ecosystems, and economies.

A quiet ditch, a shaded creek behind a park, or a cypress-lined wetland may seem small on its own. But together, these waters form the living network of the Cape Fear River Basin. We hope to share these places so more people feel inspired to protect them. As Cape Fear Creek Week approaches, residents are encouraged to step outside, follow the nearest stream, and discover the watershed that begins right outside their door.

Matt Collogan serves as the Area Natural Resources Agent for N.C. Cooperative Extension, in Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties. He can be reached at mecollog@ncsu.edu. The office is located at 25 Referendum Drive in Bolivia, Brunswick County.