As 2019 begins, the Special Areas Board is hard at work getting ready for the busy year ahead. Some key initiatives for the first part of the year include policy work related to public lands, economic development and business retention tools, road committee meetings and intermunicipal collaboration.

Much of the planned work in 2019 is a direct result of direction from the Special Areas Advisory Council. New committees comprised of Advisory Councillors and administrative staff were struck in December to investigate and develop specific policies for the Advisory Council as a whole to review. Over the next few months, these committees will be working on policies for community pastures, abandoned railways, and business investment and retention. In addition to these new committees, Administration will be developing materials to help Advisory Council review the cultivation lease policy at the next Advisory Council meeting planned for this spring.

Recommended by the Advisory Council as a part of the 2019 road program, Special Areas planning to pilot a shoulder pull program over the 2019 construction season. Designed to rehabilitate gravel roadways by re-establishing crown and appropriate surface width, this program should reduce long-term maintenance and expensive reconstruction costs. For the pilot year, the shoulder pull program will be executed both by in-house Special Areas forces and by an external contractor, allowing Administration and Advisory Council to directly compare costs, performance, and overall quality of the final product. This new program, along with the 2019 proposed road program, is being discussed by road committees throughout the Special Areas over the next few weeks. The final 2019 road program will be presented to Advisory Council at the spring meeting for approval. Some recent changes to provincial legislation are also driving part of the work in 2019. Intermunicipal collaboration frameworks and development plans are needed for the Special Areas Board and our municipal neighbours; in all, this means more than 15 different frameworks to develop. The Emergency Management Amendment Act, which came into force in November 2018, has meant changes to emergency management planning and documents for municipalities, including updating emergency plans, training, and regional collaboration. This work will continue over the next year, with stakeholder engagement and consultation planned throughout the process.

The next meeting of the Special Areas Advisory Council is planned for April 4 & 5, 2019. The Special Areas Board meets bi-monthly throughout the Special Areas.

One of the personalities that helped shape the Royal Tyrrell Museum and indeed the shape of Drumheller over the last three decades has retired.

While Don Brinkman has decided to retire, the best place to find him will still be at the museum as he continues research on a few projects. Last week he was pouring over fish remains from microfossil sites. After 36 years it’s tough to get him out of the lab.

Brinkman began his career in 1982 before the Tyrrell opened. He was director of Preservation and Research.

    “The money for the museum was committed in late 1981, and the first director David Baird was hired in December of that year, so 1982 was when things officially got rolling,” he tells the Mail. I started in the fall.”

Some of the original researchers with him in those early days included Dave Eberth, Phil Currie, and Dennis Braman. He said the goal in the early days was to create a world-class Museum and they met that achievement.

“There was a three year building period, starting with a small core collection, but there was no design for the building, there was no design for the exhibits. Specimens had to be prepared and mounted. Looking back at it now, it was very ambitious to do that amount of work in that short of time,” he said.

    “We were all very young so it was all new to us. For most of us, it was the first permanent job we had. We were familiar with universities but not working in organizations like this,” said Brinkman, who, unlike his contemporaries, grew up in the area. “I knew what I was getting into moving to Drumheller.”

Since the creation of the museum, his career not only centred on the museum but his research. This has taken him all over Alberta, Canada, and the world. One of his many career highlights was an early trip as part of the  Canada–China Dinosaur Project.

“That was putting us on the international stage in a way that is difficult to match. Partly because the way it was done was very high profile with public education built into the project. The exhibit, the book, and the film were all planned from the beginning,” he said. “That was a time when China was really opening up to the world, it was a very pivotal time for science in China, and being part of that was definitely a highlight.”

Today, Brinkman will still be toiling on his research at the museum.

“My position is sort of equivalent to an emeritus situation at a university. I have a space and support so I can carry on with research projects,” he said.

He is also busy in the community. He volunteers with the East Coulee School Museum, and many will recognize him as the fiddler in the local band Wayfaring Fiddlers. He is also planning to travel.