It may be a construction zone, but St. Albert’s Grey Nuns White Spruce Park is still full of life.
St. Albert’s white spruce forest has been closed to the public since October as crews work to add some $3.2 million worth of trails, viewing decks, and outdoor classrooms to it.
But the forest’s many birds and beasts don’t seem to care. The park is still packed with great horned owls, white-throated sparrows, and hungry moose, and crews have had to tiptoe around them to avoid wrecking their homes.
Working around nature
The Gazette checked in on the park’s construction May 25 to see how crews were working alongside the forest’s inhabitants.
Manda Wilde, the city’s interim manager of recreation facility development, said it was challenging to balance public access to the forest with conservation.
“It’s one of the last white spruce forests in western Canada in an urban setting, so it’s pretty precious to us.”
Still, as the forest (which is significantly older than St. Albert itself) is slated to be surrounded by homes, Wilde said it is important for crews to set down paths, structures, and human activity patterns now so animals will have time to adapt to them.
“It’s not going to be perfect, but it’s better than random access.”
Crews have hired a biologist to conduct weekly nest surveys during breeding season, said city environment co-ordinator Melissa Logan. If they find an active nest, crews create a 30-metre buffer around it and work elsewhere until the eggs hatch and the birds leave. Crews also stop construction if they find any moose or deer in the forest.
New features
Crews converted several of the forest’s old footpaths to meter-wide wood-chip ones to control weeds and reduce erosion. While crews trimmed the underbrush along the paths a bit, they did not remove any mature trees from the forest, and used the smallest equipment they could find to minimize disturbance, Wilde and Logan said. Unconverted footpaths will be blocked off using forest debris and eventually reclaimed by nature.
Several parts of the forest are prone to flooding, Wilde said. Crews installed two boardwalks and a viewing platform last winter so guests could navigate these areas without blocking water flows.
“It is a beautiful place to come have lunch,” Wilde said of the boardwalk.
Crews donned hip-waders and slogged through icy water in February to install a viewing platform on the south side of the forest, Wilde said. The end of the platform is shaped like a beaver’s tail, while its railings resemble a beaver dam/pile of sticks. Floodwaters should come right up to the platform’s edge each spring.
“It is my favourite part of the park right now,” Wilde said of the platform, adding that her favourite will probably change once all the trails are in.
Wilde said crews removed many bird feeders from a clearing in the middle of the forest, as it is now illegal under the parks bylaw to feed wildlife in parks (and unhealthy for the birds, who have plenty of wild food available). Crews will soon add tree-cookie seats to the clearing so it can serve as an outdoor classroom/birdwatching site.
Crews set a concrete ring in the open area on the forest’s west side. Wilde said the ring is the base of a seating area shaped like a bird’s nest and part of an outdoor classroom/picnic area.
Keep out for now
Still to come in the park’s renovation are a three-metre-wide asphalt trail to the south, east, and north, and gravel trails along the north-south service road, the east-west cutline, and the west side of the forest.
Wilde reminded residents to stay out of the park during construction, noting that crews had encountered many dog-walkers and photographers in recent months. The park is an active construction site with heavy equipment and ever-changing hazards, and not a safe place for people.
“The site really is closed, but it will really be worth waiting for,” Wilde said.
Wilde said work on the park should be finished this September.
Visit stalbert.ca/rec/parks/places/parks/grey-nuns for details on park construction.
