Visitors to Fish Creek Provincial Park in Calgary now have a new way to experience the area, one that provides barrier-free access to park users of all abilities.
The Cecile Buhl One Kilometre Experience is the first of seven accessible trails being rolled out throughout Alberta. They incorporate viewpoints, bridge railings and even tactile warning surfaces for those with vision loss.
It is named after an educator and Alberta Parks volunteer who helped with different strategies to serve Albertans with limited mobility and other disabilities.
“Cecile was an inclusion advocate. She volunteered her time as a push-to-open ambassador, an initiative under Alberta Parks’ inclusion plan to assist staff in auditing sites on behalf of Albertans with disabilities,” said Calgary-Shaw MLA Graham Sucha. “In doing so, she helped us advance our inclusion into environments for people with disabilities.”
Buhl died in 2016, but her vision for better access to Alberta’s natural areas will live on.
“Nature was what Cecile lived for and that is where she was the happiest,” said her mother Lydia Buhl. “It is an honour and pleasure that Cecile is being honoured for her work and accomplishments as an Alberta Parks ambassador.”
Other one-kilometre trails are nearing completion at Writing-on-Stone, Bow Valley, Pigeon Lake, Lois Hole Centennial, Sir Winston Churchill and Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Parks.
The province is also working with the Canadian National Institute of the Blind and the Trans Canada Trail on a project to adapt a GPS/wayfinding app to help Albertans with vision loss to access and enjoy the trail.
