Spring is bird nesting season
A symbol of spring is birds with beaks full of twigs, fur, feathers, or grass, that will be used to construct nests for their young. There are different development strategies for birds. Most birds can be separated into two types.
The fluffy duckling type are born covered in fuzzy down feathers. Ducks, geese, and most other waterfowl and shorebirds are this type, and they are known as precocial. Precocial birds are mobile right after birth; they are born with their eyes open, and typically leave the nest within two days to seek out water and food with their mother. While reliant on their mother for warmth and to teach them about feeding, they are quite independent shortly after hatching.
Most songbirds, such as the chickadees, finches, and robins, and corvids, like magpies, crows, and blue jays are altricial. They hatch from their eggs naked, with their eyes closed, making them very vulnerable and dependent on their parents for the first part of their lives. At this stage, they are called hatchlings.
After a few days, the chicks’ eyes open and feathers begin to grow, often in tube-like sheaths with interspersed down feathers. They are now nestlings. Learn more at https://www.ealt.ca/blog/its-a-birds-life
Edmonton’s love affair with river valley incinerators
In 1908, Rat Creek witnessed the construction of the city’s first public incinerator, a state-of-the-art facility that would burn fifty tons of garbage a day. However, the smell wafted toward the neighbourhood of Norwood, inciting the wrath of a large delegation of citizens.
The City Engineer agreed and argued for the removal of the Norwood monster. Commonwealth Stadium now sits on the grounds of Edmonton’s first masterplan for burning garbage. By 1931, city leaders were once again clamouring for a new burning facility, which was built in Mill Creek.
It was not big enough to absorb the post-war economic boom and the decision was taken in 1950 to build a brand spanking new incinerator on the site of the old incinerator. By 1954, s series of glowing articles in the Edmonton Journal detailed the specs on the new incinerator. With the unprecedented capacity to burn 290 tons of garbage a day, the Mill Creek incinerator was to be the final answer to the problem of the city’s dumps.
Even at 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, not everything would burn. And what did burn turned into ash and floated through the sky, landing on homes in Strathearn and Strathcona. Some summer days brought blizzards of black snow. By 1971, the City had united against the incinerator and it was destroyed to make way for Muttart Conservatory. Read more at
https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2016/07/19/world-class-dump-part-two/
Will the river boat return
According to the Edmonton Riverboat website, “due to Covid 19 we do not know when we will start operating.” In April 2020, the boat was damaged by a three-metre overnight surge in river volume that lifted it, and when waters receded, impaled the vessel on the two steel piles to which it was normally moored.
The boat’s history is one of a succession of owners, who over 25 years, have floated the 399-passenger sternwheeler on the North Saskatchewan River.
Before this boat, Edmonton businessman Ray Collins, who was enamoured with tales of the city’s turn-of-the-century paddle wheelers, tried to revive that culture in 1964 with the 80-passenger Little Klondike Queen. But it frequently ran aground, physically and financially, and operated in our picturesque river valley for only a couple years.
Collins’ second boat, built in the early-1990s, was manufactured by a city boat-maker, and generated so much excitement that the Edmonton Journal ran a 1993 contest to come up with its name, the Edmonton Queen.
The boat came in vastly over budget at $2.2 million, and the fabrication yard held back delivery. Lawsuits ensued. Collins’ venture went bust, and sawmill owner Dick Corser partnered with a property developer to pluck it from bankruptcy for what then seemed a steal: $800,000. More at https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/a-river-runs-through-it-the-story-of-the-hardiest-boat-in-edmonton/
Nature Alberta magazine worth a look
The spring issue of Nature Alberta Magazine has a lot of great information to offer. Articles include making sense of the situation in Alberta's Eastern Slopes, inviting citizen scientists for the City Nature Challenge, and learning about swift foxes, beavers, and secretive salamanders.
Nature Kids will learn how to attract pollinators with bee bombs. There is also an article that helps people wade through the multiple plant books out there and find the ones right for their level of interest. Free at https://fliphtml5.com/olrxh/aeqv
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
