2016

2016

This whole year was a busy one for the Iron Horse Trail and for Riverland Recreational Trail volunteers. The Cold Lake Trestle repair was nearing completion in the spring of 2016. Maintenance and construction projects were dominated by pipe fences near the Cold Lake trestle. A water pipeline, the Ashmont to Malliag water pipeline, was being constructed and required some attention, although it seemed one of the easiest yet, with a lot of discussion with the County of St Paul. After two years of somewhat baffling discussions, road planning the fall saw the late season building of a road in Owlseye.  We also had discussions with an oil company about how they should snow plow the trail as part of their use part of the right of way for truck access to their pumping station near the Lindbergh Salt plant. 

In the office we had a website rebuild (our 4th), and new OHS regulations for non-profits caused us to struggle and work with other non-profits on how to use volunteer labor. We started to look into the Foundation Search program but this effort was overrun by operating the trail. Sheila Thompson on behalf of Alberta Trailnet held a number of Trans Canada Trail tours around the province to keep up the trail's profile. We helped out with an event in Onion Lake.

Out on the trail heavy rains and runoff led to water on trail in some locations and the remergence of long dry springs leading to mud destabilizing trail surfaces.

An early fall with heavy snowfall led us, with a lot of effort by Jerry Bidulock to design, print and distribute crop in field signs, that went up in the farming community.