2021 A Second Year of Covid

2021 Year in Review at RRTS

By Marvin Bjornstad in 2022

I took a look at the past year from April to April and noticed some things I had forgotten. Like we got free Bird Books to give out.  But much, much, more important stuff has moved along over the 2021 year.  Our second covid year was as active as the first.

The year had the usual operational events and concerns. We got our reports to government like Casino reports and financial reports done thanks to Marianne and our bookkeeper, Louise Premek. We managed to deal with numerous adjacent landowner complaints (about 7) and concerns as well as some municipal concerns. Even little items like gates closing for winter and reopening takes some management. Keeping on top of some ongoing things like grader issues in winter seems constant. We are now planning to work with the municipalities at defining for staff a yearly plan for work that the municipalities have committed to.

All these items are just our operating issues, but they leave a lot of work on Marianne’s desk. Over many of the last few years we have spent about $75000 per year, and I am concerned almost all of it is grant funding and takes a lot of work. We are getting some Maintenance funding from TCT but each one is a one off.  This year we tried a few new ones: Marvin’s Birthday fundraiser on Facebook (not good, we still don’t have the money), last week we did a Camrose Casino, and we have looked at Raffle Box but decided not to go that route. We started using the Foundation Search process putting out multiple asks for a grant for Abilene development. Under tight timelines we got out two applications for ASA funding, one of which brought some money. It has been a busy year for grant applications.

Over the past few years, we have worked closer with Trans Canada Trail and are getting small TCT Spring Clean-Up Grants like our Chainsaw course which should get done this year. We were also able to get some small funds to get Hoodies and Trail Steward Kits.

Some projects completed by RRTS with funding from others:  Bonnyville Staging area Sign and Hitching posts, some new picnic tables, and repairs on Beaver River Trestle Fencing (who knew people would remove bolts from the railings?).

Many projects have just some inputs from us but are completed by others. For instance, the MD of Bonnyville completed some Beaver River Trestle planning with us and this led to a bigger parking lot and paving to the trestle. Right now, there is a new Trail Planning process ongoing in MD of BV and City of Cold Lake. The MD also completed an upgraded Glendon beautification plan and did changes on the IHT with the Village of Glendon.

After a couple of years, the Ardmore and Fort Kent Firehalls are nearing completion, and these have required ongoing input from RRTS. We have also worked with NE Municorr on a Trestle Repair Project. The planning and purchasing is done and it will start soon.

This 2021 year also saw the completion of our Ten-year Strategic Plan. We released the RC Strategies documents and hope to discuss it shortly with various councils. We have started moving on parts of the plan. We produced 3 documents What we Heard, Alberta's Iron Horse Trail: A Master Plan to Unlock our Potential and an Executive summary. All PDFs can be downloaded below..

This year the funding is in place for Danny’s Sign Replacement Project starting shortly in 2022. New TCT signage and an overhaul of our fading signage will be part of this effort. We have started discussions with the Canadian Salt Plant on multiple leases to move on the report’s recommendations. A new Provincial Trail Act is forthcoming, with little consultation, so we have to see how it will fit with our plans. The election in November gave us the usual changing of Municipal Councils so we need to fit our plans with their initiatives.

Information availability is always a big part of our trail process. For over a year we have been working on the OuterSpatial information app for the trail. The GPS data has been synced to the Munisite system. It still has some refinements needed but we are starting to add information to the app. We hope to roll it out shortly. As part of the process, we have added local snowmobile trail GPS data by working with municipalities and clubs. We have also worked with NE Municorr on a revised Iron Horse Trail Bylaw and the draft is now going out to councils for consideration.

We contributed to other organizations information systems by attending many webinars and other information exchanges over the year. We attended the TCT’s National Guidelines for Trails, and many webinars by the American Trails System. We have a draft revision to our 2003 Director Handbook redone this year.

This past year our partner, NE Municorr, completed a new NE Municorr Policy Manual which I hope will simplify our work over time. A major July 12 meeting for NE Municorr clarified many legal issues. A land donation by the UFA in Spedden will improve the trail there in the future. We participated in the NE Municorr Golf Tournament.

This year had lots of Alberta Snowmobile Association involvement in the trail. They helped fund the end of the Strategic Plan. One ASA club, the Elk Point Trailriders, dissolved and we helped resolve some of the issues there. The Grooming Foundation has had many mechanical issues to deal with and we have looked at future funding for the groomer.

We have had some ongoing local PR and we should do more if we can: Calvin represented us in two local parades, we gave to Supports For Troops, and were part of the Volunteer Banners in St Paul. This year Marianne Janke was awarded for the Alberta Trailnet Trail Tracker award recognizing her significant contributions of time and effort over many years toward trail building in Alberta.