1976 - Itaska Audubon Society Nature Reserve

In July, 1976, a group of cottage owners on the South end of the beach joined together to buy 50 acres of land between Beach Avenue and the government road allowance immediately to the east and the entrance road to Itaska to the North with primarily forested wetland.

The goal was to protect the land from future development and to preserve it as a bird sanctuary and nature reserve. The 27 cottage owners incorporated the Itaska Audubon Society to act as stewards for this land.

The reserve has been observed to contain many species of flora and fauna including: y balsam poplar, trembling aspen, and white spruce, red-osier dogwood, forbs, feathermoss, black spruce, dwarf willow, bog birch, Labrador tea, plus feather and peat mosses. In the fens of the Audubon area are also host to the carnivorous round-leaf sundew (Drosera rotundifolia). This could well be one of the most southerly occurrences of Sundew in Alberta. In addition, it has been noted that there are as many as six unique species of butterfly in the area.

A modestly stocked Alberta forest (such as the Audubon area) might be in the range of 400 trees per acre. If we use the conservative 50 gallons per day per tree on a 50-acre area, we arrive at an estimated 1,000,000 gallons of water per day that is being transpired by the Audubon forest. The Audubon forest is observed to be a very effective water pump and removal system that runs for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It effectively controls the water table surrounding Itaska Beach so that it does not rise above ground level and render the area unusable.

Much of this information was researched and published in “An Overview of Ecological Services Provided by the Itaska Audubon Natural Area by Richard Quinlan and Ron Hammerstedt,” which is linked on the Itaska Beach website. The other aspects of information gathered were directly from the Itaska Beach website.

Itaska Beach Audubon Reserve area noted on map_supplied by Felix Sperling

Itaska Beach Reserve_Photo supplied by Felux Sperling via the Itaska Beach website