Flying Canoë Volant festival is March 1-5
Come celebrate your inner voyageur with light, music, legends, and dance. In the spirit of a great winter city, this multi-evening festival is a creative and interactive cultural celebration designed to engage local history and everything that is great about a long winter’s night.
Inspired by the legend of The Flying Canoe and French Canadian, First Nations and Métis traditions, Flying Canoë Volant embraces Edmonton's beautiful Mill Creek Ravine and the newly established French Quarter.
The program includes snow tubing races, illuminated trails, food and drink, story telling, music and an activity tent. In case you are wondering, volant is French for flying. Festival info at https://www.flyingcanoevolant.ca/
Establishing Rouge National Urban Park - Canada’s first such park
NSRVCS’ online Annual General Meeting will feature a presentation by Mike Bender titled "Establishing Canada's First National Park-Success Through Collaboration." The topic is timely as Mayor Sohi campaigned on working “with key partners, including Indigenous communities and regional municipalities, to engage the federal government in creating an urban national park.”
The talk will outline the unique features of Rouge National Urban Park and why the park was created in the first place. It will highlight the park establishment process, including the key steps of consultation, collaboration, management planning, legislation, and implementation.
Mike Bender worked at Toronto and Region Conservation Authority for over 30 years. His positions included General Manager of Rouge Park, as well as Associate Director, Master Planning and Greenspace Conservation. Mike took on the role with Rouge Park in May of 2010, with a focus of transitioning the Park into Canada’s first National Urban Park with Parks Canada.
The AGM is scheduled for 5:30pm, Monday, March 14. RSVP to nsrivervalley@gmail.com Your name and email is necessary to send the Zoom contact information to attend the event. Learn about Rouge National Urban Park at https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/on/rouge
Red fox is the most widespread wild dog species on earth
Red foxes are one of Canada’s most widespread mammals. There are more red foxes in North America now than there were when Europeans began to arrive in the 16th century. Scientists believe the range and numbers of the red fox expanded because settlers created habitat by thinning dense forests and killing the wolves that had kept fox numbers down.
They have excellent eyesight, a keen sense of smell, and acute hearing, which help them greatly when hunting. The slight movement of an ear may be all that they need to locate a hidden rabbit and they can smell nests of young rabbits or eggs hidden by long grass. Sometimes they wait patiently for the sound of a mouse moving along its path in grass or snow and then pounce. At other times, hearing movement underground, they dig quickly and locate the prey by its scent.
Red foxes eat mostly small mammals like voles, mice, lemmings, squirrels, hares, and rabbits, although they supplement this with a wide variety of other foods, including plants. Their diet changes with the seasons: they may eat small mammals in fall and winter, augmented in spring with nesting waterfowl, especially on the prairies, and in summer with insects and berries. Read more at https://www.hww.ca/en/wildlife/mammals/red-fox.html
Camel Humps a special little corner of our river valley
The Camel Humps is a park and nature preserve at the border of Strathearn and Cloverdale. From one end to another, it is a diverse mixture of small hills and canyons, woods and trails. Around 1905, the riverbank went through a process that produced its unique topography that gives it its odd Camel Humps name today.
It was discovered that parts of the riverbank have seams of sand, perhaps left over from ancient rivers. Lime was also available, shipped in on recently built railway lines. Those two things could be used to make sand-lime bricks and easily sold as Edmonton went through its first wave of construction.
The Edmonton Pressed Brick Company took the idea and ran with it. It acquired a section of the riverbank from Cornelius Gallagher who owned a meatpacking plant and much land in Cloverdale. Today, just across Cloverdale Hill Road from the Camel Humps, Gallagher Park carries on his name.
Nature reclaimed the riverbank after the last brick was made on June 18, 1915. Topsoil had been stripped away and piled in high knolls next to the diggings. Likely bushes and trees grew back on these knolls first. Eventually all the landscape took on its present well-wooded appearance. More at https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2022/02/10/the-camel-humps-a-special-little-corner-of-edmonton/
Is the City banning mountain biking or closing trails
Nino writes “As a senior I frequently use the river valley parks and must state that we are extremely fortunate to have this wonderful asset in our City. Unfortunately, a small group of mountain bikers have been constructing bootleg trails and in so doing are destroying environmentally sensitive areas of the park system. Situations exist where materials are brought into newer bootleg trails to build bridges or shore up embankments.
In other cases, these new bootleg trails either cross or lead into established walking/multi use trails. That presents a collision danger to persons using the established pedestrian/multi use trails as the mountain bikers enter these trails a high speed. Sometimes the junctions are actually blind entries. Warning bells if they exist usually transmit weak inaudible tones and are useless as safety warning devices.
I am not against mountain bikes or bikers. I suggest the City work with established biking groups and together they work with schools in all grade levels to better educate this entire group. Further, parks staff should have the authority to detain those using or constructing bootleg trails.”
Comment or contribution
If you have a comment, concern, or question, contact us at nsrivervalley@gmail.com Please also email us river valley photos or event information. Your friends, neighbours and colleagues can sign up for this newsletter on our web site https://www.edmontonrivervalley.org/
Sincerely yours,
Harvey Voogd
North Saskatchewan River Valley Conservation Society
780.691.1712