Volunteers work on expansion of urban Edmonton forests with mass tree-planting effort

Volunteers plant trees and shrubs around the river valley's Rat Creek on July 4, 2026. (Curtis Goodrum/CTV News Edmonton)

Edmonton volunteers looking to make the river valley a bit greener were out doing some light gardening on Saturday.

Non-profit tree planting organization Trees for Life and the city’s Root for Trees initiative teamed up to begin planting 500 native trees, shrubs and wildflowers around Rat Creek, tributary to the North Saskatchewan River beside Kinnaird Park.

City program liaison Lindsay Vander Hoek says the day came about after a resident reached out asking how they could help take care of the area as Edmonton’s urban encroachment significantly reduced the creek’s reach.

It’s part of a larger city initiative to increase urban tree canopy to 20 per cent by the year 2070.

“We are doing plantings like this all throughout the city regularly, all throughout the season,” she said. “This is one of the sites that was already approved for planting, so we were able to do this event with the community.”

Edmontonians were invited to pop by, plant a shrub or tree and enjoy free ice cream.

“When someone plants a tree or a shrub, they might actually come back and visit, and actually care if it grows … That kind of instills this sense of care that extends to the land, and sometimes even beyond.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Curtis Goodrum