For 15-year-old Brennan MacDonald, a typical summer day involves pedalling over to the dirt jumps in Lacombe Park as soon as chores are done, picking up a shovel and working on some new features until noon. Then, after shovelling some food in his face at home and grabbing a two-litre water bottle, it’s back to the park to test out any new additions until the sun goes over the horizon.
A pretty simple, fulfilling routine for the Bellerose High student, which he has been following for five years – along with dozens of other teens like him – but one that will be discontinued this summer.
That is because St. Albert will begin work on the final phase of its Lacombe Park West Parks Master Plan, which includes demolishing the dirt jumps to make way for the enhanced Lachance Park playground.
“That hit pretty hard honestly, for something that we've worked on so hard for so many years, to just be plowed over in a couple months and turned into a generic kids park is awful,” MacDonald said.
In a bid to save the park that means so much to him, MacDonald started a Change.org petition and created a Facebook account (he noted people his age primarily occupy space on Instagram and TikTok) to spam various St. Albert groups with the petition.
So far, just under 1,300 people have signed MacDonald’s petition, asking the city to halt the demolition of St. Albert’s dirt jumps, which is scheduled to begin next month. MacDonald’s Facebook post on the Lacombe Park Facebook page has also garnered over 100 comments from many residents who used to while away summer days at the park in their teen years, some as far back as the '80s and '90s.
“We aren’t the first people to build here, but we don’t want to be the last,” MacDonald said while proudly showing off all the work he and his biker friends have accomplished on Wednesday.
One biking through Lacombe Park might miss the unassuming "secret" park, just a five-minute walk northeast of the dog park and essentially a small open field bordered by trees filled with homemade bike paths, jumps and ramps.
MacDonald said on any given day, there are typically 20 people gathered at the spot, between the ages of 10 and 17. Old, rusty and clearly well-used shovels are haphazardly dispersed throughout the site, tempting anyone with engineering ideas for new features to try out their idea.
It is the perfect spot for kids of all ages to gather in the summer for a good time and to meet new friends. For little tykes, it is a really important place for them to get comfortable learning to ride a bike and do something other than just pedalling straight, MacDonald said.
Another teen, Nate Surmon, said to him, the dirt jumps feel like home.
“You’re so used to this place, just it’s fun,” he said.
There is a lot of history to the place, and it is clear that no matter the generation, some things never change.
Maura O’Donoghue-Wiull was in Grade 6 in 1982 and recalls attending the park with her friends to watch cute boys build jumps and then test them out with their BMX bikes.
“It was huge because it was almost like we thought it was a secret ... like it was our secret kid hangout,” she said. Reminiscing about her own memories at the dirt jumps brings up happy memories of “pure innocence”, O’Donoghue-Wiull added, and the park gave kids something to do and kept them out of trouble.
As a junior high teacher, O’Donoghue-Wiull knows the importance of getting teens outside for some fresh air, and she said the dirt jumps give them the freedom to imagine and build their own special park.
“I just think it's a shame that the city is doing this.”
City not changing its plan
St. Albert is aware of MacDonald’s petition, but is not changing its plans for Lachance Park at this time, city corporate communications manager Cory Sinclair said in an email.
With construction set to begin in June and end in the fall, plans for Lachance Park include a nature-themed playground, multi-use trail and enhanced gravel trails.
Sinclair said during public engagement in 2018, the public highly supported trail connectivity, family-oriented play spaces and retention of the existing informal clay bike trails.
Sinclair said design of Lachance Park retains existing informal bike trails and the “small bumps and terrain changes” along existing trails. But user-created bike jumps and ramps are not part of the final design for the park.
“The dirt jumps and ramps that exist outside the treed area are relatively new, built on site by residents in the neighbourhood using material dug up from the site,” Sinclair said. He added there are “potential safety concerns” related to the size, grading and construction of the jumps.
St. Albert has previously investigated building a bike skills park in St. Albert, but there is not an adequately sized lot currently available, according to Sinclair. Long-term planning will continue to include consideration of a bike skills park, however.
