Rich dinosaur history makes Coates Conservation Lands a find in the Edmonton area
CBC
Nikki Paskar carefully navigates the hiking trail at Coates Conservation Lands, one hour southwest of Edmonton.
"This place is so special to me," says Paskar, conservation coordinator with the Edmonton and Area Land Trust. "You can sit in the serenity of the forest and just relax and think."
This 32-hectare space features a 1.3-kilometre trail, which meanders through the forest to the bottom of Willow Creek connecting with the North Saskatchewan River a few kilometres away.
This land is a wildlife corridor for fox, coyote, moose, snowshoe hare and is also home to a variety of birds, Paskar says.
You can see more from Coates Conservation Lands on Our Edmonton on Saturday at 10 a.m., Sunday at noon and 11 a.m. Monday on CBC TV and CBC Gem. You can also find it and 55 other green space gems in the capital region on this map.
Open to the public in 2016, the land was donated to the land trust by Ethel Coates who wanted to see the spot "conserved in perpetuity."
Born in 1922 to a farming family in Carbon, Alta., Coates spent 45 years working for Imperial Oil and traveled the world.
Her niece Cheryl Bissell says Coates taught her family about birds, how to ski and canoe.
"She made you pay attention to nature and all of its offerings, all the while relishing in it herself," Bissell says.
Coates decided to retire in the Calmar area and found "her little piece of heaven" in Willow Creek.
For close to 30 years she gardened, kept bees, walked the hills and valleys and skated on the creek.
"She loved her land with a passion and never ever wanted to leave it," Bissell says.
Coates died in 2014 at the age of 92.
In addition to her zeal for nature there was another reason to protect the space — dinosaurs.
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