Spring officially began March 20. While the season is commonly associated with renewal, rebirth or transformation, its specific impact on individual lives varies greatly from person to person. With that in mind, the Gazette asked several local residents to describe what spring means to them.
Pat Collins – president of the Big Lake Environment Support Society (BLESS)
Pat Collins has spent many a spring walking along the shores of Big Lake.
"I look forward to the smells of spring," he said. "The newness, and that sort of wet spring smell is really neat."
Sure, you get a lot of dog poop in each sniff, but you also get the tantalizing aroma of decaying grass and new growth, he said. (He doesn't have allergies.)
"I think I know it's spring when the river starts to flow and the ice goes off the lake," he said.
That usually floods the path to the lake under Ray Gibbon Drive, he notes, but the city recently voted to study ways to prevent the floods — a fix that just might be ready for next spring.
Al Henderson – sculptor
For St. Albert sculptor Al Henderson, best known for his Perron Street bronze statue of a youthful patron of the city, springtime is about getting reacquainted with the people not seen and the activities not done during the long winter months.
"There's a vague sense of everything coming back to life. Everything gets sloppy, there's the smell of dog poop and people you haven't seen in months start coming out," said Henderson.
"People are out and about and they're happy. Just the renewal of activity is very pleasant."
Henderson's sculpting work keeps him mostly shut in his Riel studio throughout the winter but that changes around springtime.
"I renew my on and off relationship to go jogging," he said.
Mostly his quiet pleasures are going for long walks to Lacombe Lake Park with his dog Sunny, a gentle golden Labrador.
"You meet other dog owners and the mood is very nice," he said. "We're like a community."
Ed Ewasiuk – president of the St. Albert Minor Baseball Association
Springtime signals the dawn of a special year at Legion Memorial Park for Ed Ewasiuk, as the St. Albert Minor Baseball Association celebrates its 40th anniversary.
"Spring means the beginning of many fun-filled activities and many more memories of what we have planned for throughout the season," said Ewasiuk. "It also brings out the budding trees, the sight and smell of fresh green grass and the overall beauty that surrounds our facilities."
The June 9 anniversary celebration party at Legion park coincides with the 29th annual Tigers Baseball Association tournament.
Legion park has also been named the practice facility for Team Canada at the Women's World Cup. Canada will play Australia on Aug. 8 in an exhibition in St. Albert.
"From a baseball perspective, spring to me represents the unfolding of plans, schedules, initiatives and events our executive, coaches and volunteers worked long and hard on throughout the off-season's cold winter months," Ewasiuk said.
Work is underway for the rep AAA teams to start league play April 28. The house league schedule begins April 30 and the rep AA teams hit the diamond May 4.
"Springtime brings the families and friends of our community out to once again get involved in a frenzy of activities, as they prepare our facility inside and out for the upcoming ball season. You can hear them sharing stories and laughter about the previous season or their activities since they last gathered to cheer on their children," Ewasiuk said.
"It also means being able to peacefully watch the field crew tending the fields as the morning sun glistens off the wet dew or hearing the fans cheer at the sound of the ball cracking off the bat."
John Beedle – horticulturist
Asked to share his thoughts about spring, John Beedle's first words were about work.
Before he retired, the 86-year-old Beedle was the parks manager at the City of St. Albert. For the past 20 years he's been a volunteer and landscape designer at St. Albert Botanic Park. So it's natural that Beedle's first spring thoughts were of the 850 bulb flowers, including crocuses that he planted in the park's iris garden last fall.
"I go every two or three days to see if there are any tiny sprouts up yet," he said.
Thinking about spring also takes Beedle back to his boyhood, which he spent on a farm near Jarvie, north of Westlock. Back then spring meant working with his father to get the ground ready for seeding. The hardest work was hauling the stones from the fields.
"We had no end of rocks. We tried to clear them all off each fall, but the frost seemed to heave them to the surface every spring. If you didn't pick them off, they'd get in the binder," Beedle recalled.
Glenn Tompolski – public works director, City of St. Albert
The man in charge of all things seasonal in St. Albert is refreshingly blunt when asked what he enjoys most about spring.
"It's nice to see the snow go," said public works director Glenn Tompolski. "It's almost like at your house where, in the fall time when you're cleaning your driveway after the first seasonal snow falls, you don't mind so much. But after six months it's nice to see it go."
The changing of seasons also means a change of focus for Tompolski and the public works staff. Retired are snow shovels, snow blowers and snowplows, which are exchanged for shovels of a different sort, street sweepers and pothole repair equipment.
"The nice part about public works is that it's not the same job year round," Tompolski said. "Each season brings a bit of change, which is nice and the staff and the whole department look forward to that change. If we removed snow 365 days a year, we'd get a little tired of it but spring lets us do something different like patching potholes."
Rainor Webb – motorcycle instructor
Taking in miles of uninterrupted scenery with wind blowing through your hair is at the top of the spring to-do list for motorcycle instructor Rainor Webb.
"How anxious am I to ride? On a scale of one to 10, I'm 11," he said.
Webb has been riding for nearly 50 years and said nothing compares to the feeling of freedom one experiences when on a bike.
"The only other thing that understands what it's like to have the wind through your hair is a dog, since they like to stick their heads out the window (of automobiles)," he said. "We have something in common there."
His season officially kicked off last weekend when he launched the first motorcycle course of 2012 at TNT Motorcycling in Edmonton.
He was only able to ride a handful of times before being halted by the unexpected snowfall last week. Delaying his riding further is the fact that Webb is getting his suspension upgraded in anticipation of another great season.
"As soon as I get it back, I'll be on it," he said.
