Slumping and erosion part of river valley geology
Landslides are a part of our river valley’s life. The photo is of the east bank of Gold Bar creek where a landslide has caused erosion past the Imperial Oil refinery fence and property line.
The two most famous recent landslides were Keillor Road in 2002 and Whitemud Road in 1999. The Keillor Road Landslide occurred on the outside bend of the North Saskatchewan River and the slope moved 22 m into the river.
On the morning of October 23, 1999, a large landslide occurred along a 270 m section of the North Saskatchewan River Valley and affected seven residential lots on the west side of Whitemud Road between the intersection of Ramsay Road and 43rd Avenue. Two previous failures had occurred downstream within 300 m of this location in 1976 and 1967.
Cautions and closures on river valley trails by the City are generally the result of construction, slumping, erosion, flooding, or other environmental factors, such as silt and ice. Details on the closures can be found on the following map https://www.edmonton.ca/activities_parks_recreation/parks_rivervalley/trailpark-cautions-closures.aspx
Government House to MacKinnon Ravine trail
This trail is a 5km round trip on the north bank of river, which one can increase by including Ramsey Ravine. This ravine which is a tributary of MacKinnon Ravine is 0.7km long one way.
Trailheads are either Government House Park parking lot, which is adjacent to Groat Road or the opposite end, starting at 148 Street and Summit Drive at the head of the ravine.
MacKinnon Ravine has a paved multi-use trail down its length. The multi-use trail has a gradual slope. Walkers, skateboarders, strollers, and many cyclists use this ravine to access the university or city centre.
The east fork of Ramsey Ravine has a north-south oriented multi-use trail that heads north from MacKinnon Ravine up a moderate slope to Churchill Crescent. about 131 Street. and 103 Avenue. Trail information at https://encf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Walk-II-30.pdf
City use to encourage dumping waste in the river valley
While Edmonton was one of the first western cities in North America to create a vast waterworks infrastructure, it lacked any civic strategy for dealing with waste. Large items were simply pushed off the bluff near the Hotel Macdonald and left to tumble into the river valley.
It was the prospect of reusing and repurposing garbage that gave rise to Edmonton’s largest and longest-lasting shantytown, on Grierson Dump. Many unemployed immigrants realized they could reuse this material to build their own shacks and eke out a living finding the odd treasure in the dump.
Grierson Dump was not only a convenient place to ditch unwanted items but also a landfill that, according to the City Engineer’s office, mitigated the precariously steep nature of the riverbank. The City Engineer in fact encouraged the dumping of waste down Grierson Hill.
The reality of a growing dump just below the city centre led to several crises, and in 1911 the City Commissioner made the first of many attempts to shut it down. Police investigators concluded that typhoid and other public health “menaces” were breeding at the dump.
Tension came to a head in 1913 when a cholera epidemic swept through the population of hogs who fed off the slops at Grierson Dump. The pandemic was devastating for the hogs and led to a panic among the citizenry, who feared the outbreak would spread to humans. But the dumping continued until Grierson Dump finally closed around 1940. Read more at https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2015/10/27/grierson-dump/
New app to help monitor ticks
The eTick app will launch this spring in Alberta, allowing people to send images of ticks and receive species identification within 24-hours. It does not test for diseases like Lyme, but the benefits are tick awareness, passive surveillance of tick presence, and near-immediate results to the user.
Over the past 3 years, Alberta has monitored ticks through the submit-a-tick program where ticks were sent to Alberta Health Services Environmental Health Office for testing and identification. Last year, the number of ticks increased to 2,870, of which 63 could carry Lyme disease and 3 tested positive for the bacteria.
You are likely to stumble upon ticks in Edmonton’s river valley, where it is warm and relatively humid, said Janet Sperling, who is involved with the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation. According to the Government of Alberta, several ticks in the Edmonton river valley were submitted in 2019, with one testing positive for the Lyme virus.
Studies show ticks travelling to the Prairies on migratory hosts. Canada’s Public Health Agency reported somewhere between 50 million to 175 million hitch-hiking black-legged ticks landing in Canada from migrating birds flying north each year. Learn more at https://calgaryjournal.ca/2021/04/18/new-tick-tracking-app-launching-soon-in-alberta/
River valley concern or contribution
If you have a river valley concern or question, contact us at nsrivervalley@gmail.com
Your friends and neighbours can sign up for this newsletter on our web site.
If you have a photo, information, or event about Edmonton’s river valley and think it should be in this newsletter, email it to us.
Sincerely yours,
Harvey Voogd
North Saskatchewan River Valley Conservation Society
780.691.1712