In the middle of winter, it’s easy to feel entitled to a bare pathway. In some areas of Calgary, the city’s snow clearing has improved so much that pathways are regularly plowed before the adjacent roads. It’s not a perfect system, but regular winter cyclists have come to expect clear pathways as part of our functioning transportation network.

But it wasn’t long ago that Calgary’s much vaunted multi-use pathway system wasn’t plowed at all. In fact, it took a small army of volunteers — most of them dedicated cyclists who couldn’t bear the thought of parking their bikes for the season — to keep the paths clear. And in a roundabout way, the expectations those volunteers set up helped usher in today’s network of plowed paths.

Distroscale

It all goes back to the mid-1990s, when the idea of cycling through the winter was an absurdity to everybody except a small group that included Colynn Kerr and Jeff Gruttz, two avid cyclists who worked for the city. For most of the year, Kerr rode his bike to City Hall down the Memorial Drive pathway. But when the snow fell, the pathway all but disappeared until the next melt, and cyclists put away their bikes.

But Kerr, who is now a retired snowbird, had an idea. He had once built a simple plow that he dragged behind his truck to clear a small section of road at the family cabin, and he wondered if he could make something similar for his bike. He got to work cutting up some 20 litre plastic buckets, filled some empty plastic pop bottles with sand to weigh them down, and connected the whole thing to the back of his bike. It worked. It wasn’t easy, but dragging the contraption behind his mountain bike cleared a path wide enough for a bike to find asphalt.

He got some funny looks from passersby, but others were inspired. “I couldn’t believe how well it worked,” Gruttz told me recently, as he reminisced over coffee. “In light snow, before it was packed, it did a great job.”

Soon, a small cadre of volunteers, including Gruttz, was hard at work. They improved on the prototype, and spent many cold nights under snowfall clearing pathways for morning commuters. Eventually, they even rigged up a wider plow that could be dragged behind Gruttz’s old Datsun pickup truck. “We realized we lived in Alberta, the land of oil and gas, so why not burn a little fuel,” Gruttz said with a laugh.

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Soon, after reaching an arrangement with the city, they were clearing the Bow River pathway from Edworthy Park to 14th Street, giving potentially thousands of cyclists a clear path (the city did clear a small section of pathway around downtown). Their work didn’t go unnoticed — they were written up as novelties by the Herald several times, made it into Maclean’s magazine, and Kerr recalls getting an excited call from his sister in Vancouver after she saw his photo in the newspaper — but it was hard, sometimes thankless work. For five years, volunteers kept it up.

Then came the St. Patrick’s Day snowstorm of 1998. It was the worst March snowstorm in 113 years, according to Environment Canada. Parts of the city received 45 cm of snow. The city was locked in. Except, of course, for the volunteer pathway plowers.

Gruttz recalls a group of volunteers working the plow behind the truck. The snow was so deep that it poured over the blades. Two volunteers stood on each side of the plow, holding on for dear life, as a way of adding weight and giving them a chance to clear the constantly accumulating snow from the plow, as if bailing a sinking rowboat. Try as they might, however, the snow was too much.

But something happened that day. All the runners and cyclists who had grown accustomed to a cleared pathway started complaining to City Hall. Why haven’t you cleared the pathway yet, they asked. Get out and do your jobs, they demanded. The trouble was, the city never cleared that pathway. It was Kerr and Gruttz and those volunteers. But after five years, Calgarians had come to expect it, and they assumed it was city workers doing the job.

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Both Kerr and Gruttz told me that day was a turning point. Those complaints convinced City Hall that people wanted cleared pathways. Kerr recalls a subsequent public hearing on the matter at City Hall, in which runners, cyclists and pedestrians all demanded proper snow clearing. Particularly memorable to him was a blind Scotsman who showed up in city council chambers wearing a kilt. “(He said), with a broad brogue, ‘I walk the winter paths and without it cleared, I’d not find the edge and wander out onto the river ice!’ ” Kerr said.

Soon, the City took over responsibility for pathway clearing, an initiative that continues to grow. It’s not a perfect system — cyclists still complain that too few pathways are cleared, and sometimes it takes too long — but compared to 20 years ago, it’s a completely different attitude and approach.

The volunteers gave up responsibility for the pathways and went on their way. Both Kerr and Gruttz are now retired, although they continue to be a vocal supporters of cycling in the city (Gruttz went on to help found cycling advocacy group Bike Calgary), but both recall their plowing days fondly, and they feel some pride in how they helped make the city a little more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists.

“Our intent was never to shame the city (into plowing), but we recognize now that application sometimes does work,” Gruttz told me, with a bit of a wink. “(After the city took over), we didn’t mind stepping back. We just had to find some other way to occupy our winter evenings.”

Thanks to Gruttz for the photos.