The province has kicked in $160,000 to add new trails and accessible washrooms to Lois Hole Park.
St. Albert MLA Marie Renaud dropped by the Enjoy Centre Tuesday to announce the province would invest the money this year to add a new trail and accessible washrooms to Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park just west of St. Albert.
Established in 2005, the park was named after former lieutenant-governor and St. Albert resident Lois Hole.
The announcement coincided with the release of the park’s management plan, which has been in the works since 2016.
“This management plan is not only a guiding document, it’s a commitment to Lois Hole, her legacy, her family and the values she held in her commitment to nature,” Renaud said.
The new trail will be a 1.2-kilometre loop through the forest and field just south of the park’s parking lot, said Sharina Kennedy, the Alberta Parks planner in charge of the park’s management plan. It will be wheelchair-accessible and made of crushed rock, and will feature benches and interpretive signs. The trail will address problems with off-leash dogs and trash that have built up on the informal trails here and restore native vegetation to the region.
This was an important and exciting investment in the park, which was poised to become a major tourist attraction, said Al Henry, president of the Big Lake Environment Support Society. He said it is vital to get proper trails put in now before foot traffic does irreparable harm to the park.
“Elke would love you,” he told Renaud, referring to the late St. Albert environmentalist Elke Blodgett.
St. Albert Coun. Wes Brodhead said he was happy the province has recognized the value of investing in St. Albert with this and the recent Ray Gibbon Drive announcement. This new trail would make the park more accessible to visitors and should mesh well with the new BLESS viewing platform once it’s built next winter.
“I love walking the path that’s there now, and this is only going to enhance it,” Brodhead said.
“Bible” for park
The 158-page park management plan sets out how the park is to be used, developed and protected.
This is the bible for what can and can’t happen in the park, and it can’t be changed without an order in government, Henry said.
“Now there can’t be an RV park that goes in along one side.”
The plan specifies that the park’s purpose is to protect one of the largest wetlands in the region and to provide opportunities for nature-based education and low-impact recreation. It notes the park is host to some 235 bird species, including the endangered trumpeter swan and peregrine falcon, a rare fern forest that houses some 84 plant species, and one of Alberta’s three “birds-foot” deltas.
The plan sets out where future trails, day-use areas and the environmental learning centre will be built, Kennedy said.
“There could be a trail that goes all the way around the lake eventually,” she said, but that would depend on funding.
Renaud said in an interview she would have loved to announce cash for the park’s learning centre (which has been in the works since about 2010), but the province couldn’t afford it given the state of the economy.
The plan calls for more monitoring of the park’s plants, animals and water, and says parts of it should be closed to boats if necessary to protect nesting birds. Kennedy said Alberta Parks planned to work with the city on signage and education for boaters before it brought in lake closures.
Enjoy Centre co-owner Jim Hole said it is great to see Lois Hole Park is now on a path to long-term sustainability.
“It’s also great to see the message to the visitors is, ‘Please visit, but leave a gentle footprint’ – a message Mom would have loved to hear.”
Kennedy said work on the new trails and improved washrooms should start this fall.
Visit bit.ly/2XFjuwX for details on the trail investment and park management plan.
