Kerry Wood Nature Centre and Sanctuary trail remain closed; 1000 trees down

One of Red Deer’s hidden gems is the Wishart Trail and it is likely to be out of commission for quite some time.

The Wishart Trail is a 4-kilometre loop which encompasses the Gaetz Lakes Sanctuary, which is located adjacent to the Kerry Wood Nature Centre, which also remains closed.

Todd Nivens, Executive Director at the Nature Centre, says the power line feeding the building is completely down, so they can’t offer programming or even washroom facilities until that problem is fixed.

As for the trail, Nivens says it is entirely impassable.

“It is an order of magnitude worse than it was in the last storm (on June 8). In the last storm, I believe City Parks crews had to clear 85 trees off the trail, and then there were a number that were down on the north side of the south end of the trail, from the trail down to the lake,” he says.

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“Right now, it’s not an exaggeration to say we are essentially missing an entire hillside of trees. There are hundreds of trees down on the south end trail, there are entire sections of forest that have quite simply been lifted up and moved somewhere else. I’ve been trying to put a number to how many trees we think are down and conservatively, [I’d say] over 1000.”

Nivens says on Wednesday, himself and a technician ventured out to conduct a survey of some lower parts of the trail. He describes the experience as uncomfortable as trees creaked and others went down in their vicinity.

Unfortunately for trail-goers, there’s no imminent fix as City crews are intent on restoring power to the 400 or so properties still left in the dark by the storm.

Once they are able to turn their attention to the sanctuary, Nivens says, “It’s going to require some really, really specialized knowledge, a specialized skillset and some exceptional bravery on some peoples’ parts.”

“As we stood on the trail yesterday in places where we should’ve been in the middle of a dark forest, we had sightlines that we’ve never had. It was open all around us and in one case to get around some trees, we had to go way off trail to places we don’t even take the public during programming,” he says. “It was like walking in a clear cut — it was astounding at how few trees in some places remained standing.”

Nivens notes the 1-kilometre Dr. George Trail, which turns off and takes walkers to the bird blind over the West Gaetz Lake, could re-open once the Nature Centre does.

Updates on the centre’s status will be posted on its Facebook page.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the river at Lions Campground, crews are busily cleaning up downed trees. There are still campers on site, but the tenting area is closed as the area is yet to be touched by cleanup personnel.