St. Albert’s white spruce forest will be closed for most of October and parts of next year so crews can add trails, a beaver tail, and a giant bird’s nest to it.
The Grey Nuns White Spruce Park at 16 Hogan Rd. will be closed to the public from Oct. 1 to mid-November as crews construct trails, lookouts, and outdoor classrooms in the park.
Work on this year’s additions to St. Albert’s oldest known tree stand started back in 2018 as part of an update to the Red Willow Park master plan, said city parks development senior projects manager Manda Wilde.
The additions, as depicted in plans posted to the city’s website, should leave the white spruce forest largely as it currently is, apart from the addition of some permanent trails, benches, boardwalks over wet areas, and two outdoor classrooms.
Crews plan to convert many of the park’s existing dirt trails in the forest into metre-wide wood-chip ones to control weeds and reduce erosion, Wilde said. About four trail segments will be closed for re-naturalization to reduce forest fragmentation. A small viewing deck and outdoor classroom will be built in the middle of the forest.
Crews will convert existing trails that run along the south side of the forest, the central access road, the east-west cutline, and the park’s western edge to a two-metre gravel path, the plans show. This path will feature benches and trash cans and pass through a central interpretive area located in what is currently an open field in the forest’s west side. That area will include a picnic shelter, portable washrooms, and an outdoor classroom Wilde said would be shaped like a bird’s nest.
Crews plan to build a three-metre asphalt trail that wraps around the south, east, and north edge of the forest, starting from the pedestrian path off Ray Gibbon Drive and ending at the gravel access road to the north. This path will be the only place where bicycles are allowed in the park, and will feature benches, bike racks, and a lookout shaped like a beaver’s tail facing the Sturgeon River.
Wilde said the park will be closed from Oct. 1 to mid-November as crews clear ground and bring in heavy equipment. The park will then reopen until January, at which point the ground will be frozen enough for crews to pound posts and lay the asphalt trail. Crews will close parts of the park throughout from January to August as construction continues.
Wilde said crews timed the start of construction to avoid bird-nesting season and will do as much work as they can by hand to minimize disturbance. Researchers will search the forest for nests next summer and halt construction in areas should they find any.
Frequent white spruce park visitor Scott Tansowny said he likes how the city plans to follow existing trails and use wood-chip paths in the forested area during construction, as that will limit the project’s environmental impact. He said he hopes crews will minimize the number of trees they have to remove.
Wilde said this phase of the park’s development is budgeted at $3,155,900 and should be wrapped up by next August. Future phases will link the asphalt trail to the Red Willow Park trail network and create a parking lot.
While this development will make the park more accessible, Tansowny noted that it will also change its character, making it feel less wild and natural.
“One of the nice things about the park right now is you’re in there and it feels like you’re in a forest,” he said.
Visit stalbert.ca/dev/construction/parks/red-willow-park-west for details on this project.
