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Elke Blodgett was born in 1936 in Lepzig, Germany. Her father was a chemical engineer, who first taught her about caring for the environment and living off the land. Her first love of nature began with picking blueberries on her family's East Prussian estate. In her youth, she lived in England, Switzerland, France, Greece and the United States before moving to Canada in 1966. She was married to Ted [Edward Dickinson] Blodgett. She attended the University of Minnesota and completed her Bachelor of Arts Degree in a year and a half.

Blodgett moved to St. Albert in 1966. After exploring the St. Albert river valley and Big Lake, Blodgett became an all-round watchdog, resolving to do all she could to maintain its environmental integrity. She was a founding member off the Anti-Bypass Coalition, and was subsequently elected spokesperson. She was involved in gathering over 10,000 signatures in the 1997 petition to encourage city council to consider all possible routes for the western bypass. She also successfully lobbied for Big Lake to be designated under the Special Places 2000 program. She was a participant on the city committees St. Albert Red Willow Park Update and Parks and Open Spaces Committee. She is involved in continuous efforts to clean up the river valley, and to report transgressions to Alberta Environment.

Elke Blodgett is also an artist focused on pottery, particularly hand-building, raku, wood kiln construction, and primitive firing. Her works are in collections world-wide including the Banff Centre permanent collection, Canada Council Art Bank (Ottawa), and the Consulate-General of Japan (Edmonton). She has been a part of many solo and group exhibitions. She has won dozens of prizes for her work including first prize in Reflections on Three Plains Ceramics Exhibition (Winnipeg), honourable mention in Showcase '80 Juried Travelling Exhibition (Alberta), first prize in Raku, Primitive Pottery and Wheelwork, (Stony Plain), as well as many purchase awards. She has also taught courses in hand-building, raku pottery and kiln construction.

Elke Blodgett passed away on February 15, 2018 in Edmonton, Alberta.

St. Albert physician, Dr. Fin Fairfield, founded the Big Lake Environment Support Society (B.L.E.S.S.) in 1991. The non-profit organization had 23 founding members. Their aim was to raise interest of the public in Big Lake and protect the natural wildlife on or near the lake, as well as making available recreation activities at the lake including walking trails, canoe trips and bird watching. On January 10, 2002 the organization was named the provincial stewards for the Big Lake natural park which had been designated Special Places site in 2000. In 2005, the site became a provincial park and was named Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park.

Activities of the organization include over ten years of bird count records for the Big Lake area. In 2006 they implemented a water quality monitoring program, obtaining baseline water quality data for Big Lake, its inlets and outlet. B.L.E.S.S. have built a viewing platform at the lake and a shelter on the Red Willow Park Trail. They have added signage relating to bird species at the lake. With help from Alberta Parks, they installed a web camera on the shores of Big Lake. They were active in the protest of the West Bypass road. B.L.E.S.S. also sponsors summer education programs hosted at the cabin at St. Albert Trail and Sturgeon Road.

B.L.E.S.S. has received two awards, the Alberta Emerald Award for Environmental Excellence and the 2005 Steward Service Excellence Award. The society has nominated Big Lake for the Special Places 2000 program and the Important Bird Areas program.

The Bellerose family is one of the early and founding Metis families of the settlement of St. Albert. The family patriarch in the region was Olivier Bellerose (1809-1891) who came to the region from Quebec in 1833, in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company. He married Josephte (Suzette) Savard and was stationed at Fort Dunvegan and Lesser Slave Lake before posting at Fort Edmonton in 1855. The family, including thirteen children, settled on the north shore of the Sturgeon River in 1859, a site later surveyed as River Lot 38. Olivier Bellerose was a member of the committee that prepared the original bylaws for St. Albert. Although settled at St. Albert, Bellerose continued to work for the Hudson's Bay Company. Olivier and Suzette Bellerose both died in 1891. Many of the descendants of the family continued to live in the St. Albert region and contributed to its development.

John Beedle was born John Bedell in Westlock, AB to Herbert and Nellie Bedell on April 30, 1926. He was the second oldest of 6 children. He grew up working on the family homestead in Jarvie, AB. Beedle would later legally change his last name to better reflect his family’s roots. Beedle took an interest in nature as early as age 5, which would shape the rest of his life.

Beedle left home at 14 and worked various jobs before settling in St. Albert in 1962. In the late 1940s Beedle started his working career at a greenhouse in Kelowna, B.C. In the early 1950s he moved to Edmonton where he found employment at Calenso's Greenhouses and 2 years later worked at the city of St. Albert and bought a house on a small acreage on Grandin Road where he resided and cared for his mother for many years.

Beedle worked with the City of St. Albert's Parks department for 29 years (1962 to 1991). Beedle moved through the ranks with the City of St. Albert as Parks Foreman, Parks Supervisor and in 1968 he was promoted to the position of Director of Parks and Recreation. In 1972 he became Parks Planner until his retirement in 1991. It was largely under his guidance, passion and vision that the city of St. Albert has developed its beautiful boulevards, parks, tree canopies and green spaces.

In 1989, both Beedle and former St. Albert Mayor Richard Plain came up with the idea of creating a volunteer run botanical park with a major rose garden as its centrepiece. Beedle spent countless volunteer hours helping to bring the St. Albert Botanic Gardens to fruition and the better part of the next 25 years creating the major gardens located throughout the present day botanical park. In honour of Beedle, St. Albert Botanic Park houses the John Beedle Volunteer Centre. Also, Beedle was a part of the original group that helped establish the St. Albert Garden Club in 1982 and spent many hours serving as a director with the Friends of the Devonian Botanic Garden society.

Beedle was also a member of the Edmonton Light Opera Society. He was an active participant in 26 productions over a 13 year period. In his younger days he sang in church choirs as a second tenor both as soloist and a member of the choir.

John Beedle passed away at the Sturgeon Community Hospital in St. Albert, Alberta on October 23, 2019 at the age of 93.

Luisa Vollmer was born in St. Jacobs, Ontario in 1865 and Jeremiah Seibert was born at Heifelberg, Ontario in 1857. Luisa Vollmer and Jeremiah Seibert married and farmed at Port Huron on the Lake Huron coast in Ontario. They had six children including Fred, Herbert, Florence, Lulu, Marguerite and Percival. In 1917, the family moved to St. Albert and had purchased land beside the Atkinson brother’s homestead where they farmed.

Thomas Atkinson came to Edmonton from Liverpool, England with his two brothers, Jim and Ted in 1907. The brothers found work in Edmonton laying foundations for the swimming pool of Edmonton’s first Y.M.C.A. and working on the sewer system. Later that year, the brothers made their first homestead west of Edmonton near Wabamun Lake. On the homestead, Thomas Atkinson had a sawmill for which he required an Engineers certificate from the Department of Public Works. In 1911, his other brother Jack came to Canada and moved to the homestead. The brothers supplied lumber for cottages built along Seba Beach. In 1913, the brothers’ sister Mary came to Canada and lived at her brothers’ homestead.

The one brother Jim as well as Mary’s future husband, Perley Cull from Seba Beach, served in WWI. The other brothers were exempt from the war on account of their importance in food production. In 1917, the brothers moved their homestead to St. Albert. They purchased the land from Arthur Sifton who was premier of Alberta. In 1920, Mary Atkinson and Perley Cull were married. Much later, in 1945, Jack Atkinson married Eunice Holmes.

On December 18, 1919, Thomas Atkinson married Florence Seibert, daughter of Jeremiah and Luisa Seibert. Florence Seibert had been working as a secretary for the Government of Alberta until she married Thomas Atkinson and consequently, she supported the farm and her husband’s work and family. Thomas Atkinson and Florence Seibert had two daughters, Helen who was born in 1921 and Gladys who was born in 1926. Helen Atkinson married Wilfred Naundorf in 1945 and the couple had three daughters. Gladys married Keith Gibson in 1946 and they had five children. In 1952, the Atkinson brothers’ farm was sold to H.R. Milner.
Thomas and Florence Atkinson moved to Edmonton after the farm was sold and Thomas Atkinson died in 1969. Florence Atkinson died in 1972. Earlier, Jeremiah Seibert died in 1955 and Luisa Seibert died in 1947.