Landowner Rights & Trail User Responsibilities

The Waskahegan Trail is a unique resource that exists only because of the generosity of landowners. Before you set foot on the trail:

  1. Know the landowner rights and the trail user responsibilities.
  2. Check the trail conditions

Big Lake, Butterflies, and Birds

Our hike last Sunday was at the Big Lake area west of St. Albert. It’s a wonderful place to visit in the spring. We started with a walk through the Grey Nuns White Spruce Park. The trees were just starting to leaf out, and the growth on the forest flower was only a few inches high. Most remarkable was the white butterflies—they were everywhere.

Then we went on to the lake, where we saw ducks, geese, and snipe.

We were very fortunate to run into Dale Scott, a wildlife photographer, who had set up a tripod and giant camera on the boardwalk over the marshes. He was photographing Phoebes.

Eastern Phoebe by Dale Scott

Unless you are an experienced birdwatcher, you don’t notice these birds until someone points them out to you. And then suddenly you see them everywhere.Song Sparrow by Dale Scott

Dale has very generously provided the two photos on this page—photos which he took that day. The one above is an Eastern Phoebe and this one on the right is a Song Sparrow. You can view more of his beautiful pictures on Flickr.

 

Maintenance at Miquelon North

 

004We built two 10 ft. lengths of boardwalk adding on from the bridge we built April 27th, which will be even better in wet weather. We were short a couple of boards and it needs a ramp at the ends…finishing touches next yr.

We chained and clipped in the reroute and at the Miquelon road end.

From Ministik to the reroute I chained and Bonnie did some signing and clipping and clearing, but after I refilled the chain saw with gas it refused to keep running! It started but then would die….Oscar said there is always more issues with the saws when it is hot. Anyway I had to leave the last 15 or so trees but not bad to step over…..next year we will get the rest.

We had not enough people to do any more (like weed eating), but it was good to go for the hike.