Hike Clifford E. Lee Nature Sanctuary

Just 33 km southwest of Edmonton is Clifford E Lee Nature Sanctuary. A 348 acre protected area in Parkland County that attracts a diversity of animals, and bird species.

The area has about 5 km of multiple connected trails through the diverse landscape and is classified as easy. Once you leave the parking lot, you will start on the boardwalk loop. A raised boardwalk that winds through marshlands of cattails and reeds. Further down the boardwalk are viewing platforms overlooking the open water, home to more than 100 bird species including great blue herons, mallards, common loon, Canada goose, tundra swan, and bald eagle)

The trail then takes you through a grassy meadow full of wildflowers that is home to the larger animal species observed in the sanctuary (white-tailed deer, moose, coyote, fox) as well as butterflies, moths and dragonflies and then through a forest before connecting back to the boardwalk. The Aspen Ridge trail cuts through the boardwalk/meadow loop, and has some hilly sections. The snowshoe hare, and a few different species of squirrels frolic in this forest.

Just before the boardwalk, you can choose to go down the Pine Knoll loop featuring a jack pine forest and continue your way along the Woodland Flower trail, a poplar, paper birch and white spruce forest with many wildflowers in the forest clearings. (At the end of the Woodland Flower trail, you can either turn around and go back the way you came or walk alongside the road along a marsh back to the parking lot. Which is approximately 650 meters)

Getting there: From Highway 60 (Devon Highway), turn west at Woodbend Rd. (13.2 km south of Highway 16A). Follow Woodbend Rd. (Township Road 514) 1.6 km to Sanctuary Rd (Range Road 264). Turn south onto Sanctuary Rd.and continue for 1.4 km to the parking area on the right.