The arbourists

Sheila Flint celebrates her birthday this month the same way she always does: with trees.

It's Saturday morning in a parking lot at Strathcona County's Salisbury Composite High School. Excited chatter fills the air as Flint, the county's urban forester, gives away about 15,000 seedlings to a long line of residents.

Flint coos over the trees as if they were kittens. "Look at that cute little baby!" she gushes, as she hands over an oak branch in a clump of dirt. "You will love this tree. He's magnificent."

Today is her birthday, she says, smiling. "I can't think of a better way to celebrate a birthday than getting new trees into the ground."

Flint recently became the first Canadian ever to receive an award from the ArborArbor Day Foundation. She gives out 60,000 trees to Albertans every year, some of which will be planted next week during St. Albert's Arbor Arbour Day celebrations.

Hundreds of residents will head to Willoughby Park this Wednesday to celebrateArbor Arbour Day. In doing so, they will join Flint and other extraordinary individuals as guardians of the forest.

The tree lover

Flint, 59, really loves trees. She plants them, prunes them, cries when they break — she even met her husband at a tree conference. "They're the most magnificent thing on this planet," she says. "All the things trees do for us; how could you not love them back?"

Flint has been a part of the county'sArbor Arbour Day events for 25 years. At first, she recalls, she'd just drop the trees off at a school and tell the principal what to do with them. Now, she brings about 1,200 students to Broadmoor Lake to plant trees, hear talks, and win up to $1,000 in a colouring contest.

Flint's ArborArbour Day advocacy is one reason she was recognized by the ArborArbor Day Foundation this month. Another is her annual tree giveaway.

About 12 years ago, Flint says, St. Albert forestry professor Peter Murphy asked her if she could help him hand out 20,000 seedlings for Tree Canada. "I thought I'd never get rid of these seedlings," she says, but she put an ad in the paper anyway: "Free seedlings, 250 per family."

It worked all too well. There was a line of cars four blocks long on the day of the giveaway, Flint says, with some drivers getting speeding tickets in their zeal to get there on time. She didn't have nearly enough trees. "I almost got lynched." She and Murphy learned their lesson: now, families get just 15 trees, and they have 60,000 available each year.

Flint estimates that she's given away about a million trees through this program, many of which are now so big she's getting calls to take them away. "They're all coming home to roost!" she says, laughing.

The forester

You can't make a list of famous local foresters without John Beedle.

Beedle was St. Albert's parks planner for about 30 years, say city staffers, and had a hand in planting virtually every boulevard tree in St. Albert. Now retired, he spends much of his time here in the city's botanic garden, chatting with gardeners and checking out the trees.

"I'm a Taurus," says Beedle, 84, "so nature is a natural thing for me." His first experience with nature came when he was five, he recalls. There was a pansy by the house, and his parents were above it tossing shingles off the roof. He grabbed some of them and built a tent to protect it.

Leaving the family farm in Jarvie at 14, Beedle rolled through a number of jobs before landing in St. Albert in 1962. Ken, Beedle's brother, told him that he should he come out and talk to parks planner Andre Gate — a Parisian nicknamed "Moses" for his beard. Beedle says Gate grilled him for an hour and a half in the city's greenhouse, asking about almost every plant in the building before hiring him as a horticulturist.

Beedle took over Gate's job in 1968. His task was to implement the city's new boulevard tree program, which involved planting about 500 trees a year. He personally planted about 5,000, he estimates, and supervised 25,000 more. The little-leaf lindens were his favourite, since they didn't get sick and were easy to maintain.

There are now about 38,000 trees and shrubs in the city from 41 species, according to the city's tree inventory. Watching them grow has been the best part of his job, Beedle says. "Don't plant things and look at the way they are now. You have to look 10 years from now at what they're going to be."

Despite having a park and a building named after him, Beedle is still modest about his contribution to trees. "I was in the right place at the right time," he says, and had the backing of many supportive councils. "I worked 30 years at my hobby!"

The futurist

Trees are more than just a hobby to Kurtis Ewanchuk — they're a key to the future.

It's a windy Sunday afternoon. Ewanchuk, 26, is here on a hilly farm near Calahoo teaching 10 other youths how to plant trees. He's full of energy as he demonstrates how to plant willows and caraganas using a shovel, soil, mulch and what he gleefully calls "really awesome horse shit."

"These are HUGE!" he says, looking at a young willow's gnarly roots. "Once these are established they'll be a mega-benefit to the ecosystem."

Ewanchuk, an occasional resident of St. Albert, is the founder of the Aspen Centre for Integral Living. His group has planted hundreds of trees on this three-acre site and about 8,000 throughout Sturgeon County to promote sustainable living.

"I utilized yoga as a transformative mechanism for evolving the consciousness of my person," he says, when asked how he started down this path. It made him more aware of his connection to the environment and the wasteful nature of modern life, and bolstered his interest in social justice and ecological economics.

"The amount of people living on this planet and how we're living cannot be sustained," he says. "If we don't begin a conscious, intentional transition, we're going to be in a lot more trouble than we want to be."

His group promotes permaculture as an alternative. It's an approach to designing landscapes that works with nature rather than against it, he explains.

Take this hill, for example. Volunteers are planting hardy caraganas on top to act as a windbreak. Furrows dug into the hill collect rainwater, reduce erosion and provide a home for willows. The plants will provide habitat for animals and food and fuel for humans. A net-zero, solar- and wind-powered home under construction on the hill will run its wastewater through these and other plants for treatment, providing moisture and nutrients.

"You're stacking functions," Ewanchuk says. "Instead of having one use for something, you're having many simultaneous uses."

In 10 years, Ewanchuk hopes, the property will have gone from an empty field to a rich forest providing renewable food and energy for its residents. In 20, he hopes everyone on the Prairies will understand permaculture. "I'm hoping this is going to really clue people into what's possible."

Foresters of the future

Trees don't last forever, Beedle notes, and he's seen many of the ones he helped plant felled by drought in recent years. "It's sad to see that," he says. "You always thought they'd be there and they'd outlive you."

We're losing our forests at a phenomenal rate due to urban sprawl, Flint says, which makes planting trees of vital importance. That's why seeing a child with a tree brings tears to her eyes — she knows they'll both grow up together. "There's no better feeling in the world than to see a child holding a seedling, because that's the future."