Snow Goose Festival
Souvenir Edition IDE! N S ID IIN
Your LOCAL Media since 1918! Volume 105 Issue 32
www.tofieldmerc.com
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 s
Snow Goose Festival Full Steam Ahead Snow Goose Festival Full Steam Ahead Jana Semeniuk Staff Reporter
With a little over a week to go, plans for resurrecting Tofield’s famous Snow Goose Festival, April 22 to 23, are well underway and Tofield’s recreation/facilities coordinator Vanita Eglauer, also a festival organizer, said technology has helped the process. “I was actually working here at the Town when the first festival was on in the ’90s, and in those days, internet was in its infancy so we did a lot of the registrations manually,” she said, adding that using Eventbrite has streamlined the process for attendees and the organizers. “It is a platform that more people are familiar with.” Tofield’s annual Snow Goose Festival, which began in 1992, was a hotbed of activity with organized bus tours and walking tours for birders and enthusiasts to observe the Snow Geese’s annual spring migration. The awe-inspiring vision of literally thousands of beautiful white Snow Geese with their black tipped wings ascend-
ing and descending from the lake drew people from as far away as Nevada. Other birds observed included various shorebirds, cranes and swans. As water levels at Beaverhill Lake began to decline in the late ’90s, the Snow Geese were forced out of the area, drawing the festival to a close in 2003. Over a decade later, as water levels began to replenish and more snow geese were observed in the area, plans to renew the festival were made with a date set for April in 2020, but the festival was cancelled after pandemic restrictions were instituted. A comprehensive history of the annual event was published in a 2019 newsletter by the Beaverhill Bird Observatory (BBO), which stated that in 10 years, the festival grew from 2,000 to 6,000 people attending over the two-day event, which ran ‘rain or shine’ with bus tours and walking hikes. Local organizations who partnered to put on the event included the Town of Tofield, Ducks Unlimited, Canadian Wildlife Service of Environment
Canada, Edmonton Natural History Club, Edmonton Bird Club, Alberta Environmental Protection/Fish & Wildlife, Beaverhill Bird Observatory, Beaver County and Strathcona County. Meanwhile, this year, Eglauer said Strathcona County has renewed their involvement by offering free shuttle buses from Sherwood Park to festival headquarters in Tofield. “You need to book on Eventbrite, but it’s free,” she said, adding that the festival will offer a host of other activities over the two days including a trade show, free children’s activities in addition to a Saturday night dinner banquet and silent auction. A speaker series, with four speakers taking place over the two-day festival, include Thea Carpenter who is presenting on the Boreal Songbird Population, BBO Assistant Biologist John Von Arragon who will focus on the facility’s 40 years of Bird Conservation, Dr. John K. Pattison-Williams who will be speaking on The Curious Case of Prairie Wetlands, and Glen
Ducks Unlimited Photo
Lawrence, Strathcona County Councilor who will be presenting on Cool Things to do and see in the Beaver Hills. In addition, banquet guest speaker Biologist Garnet Raven will discuss the Lesser Snow Geese: population trends and management. Other vendors who are taking part in the trade show include Beaverhill Bird Observatory, North American Waterfowl Management Plan (Ab NAWMP), Nature Alberta, Claystone Waste, Alberta Conservation Association, Beaver Hills Biosphere, Ministik Crafters and Goat & Gopher Cards ‘n Stuff. Information on this year’s Snow Goose Festival can be found on the Town of Tofield website, tofieldalberta.ca, where you can also find links to purchase tickets, or contact the Town of Tofield at 780-662-3269. Included in this week’s Mercury is a Snow Goose souvenir section with all the information about the event including the birds, businesses and organizations which promise to make the weekend another success.