Connecting Planners to Their Senses: Part I - Natures Jake Brakes (January 30, 2025)
How people actually connect to their parks ...
Vlog Overview
"Parks and Like Icebergs" is a comprehensive exploration of various aspects related to municipal parks, including urban parks planning and subsequent park service operationalization. The synergy of processes between the two is integral to the creation of sustainable cities. The vlog marries my extensive experience as a parks practitioner for over 30 years with a PhD in parks planning decision-making in Edmonton Alberta, my Phd in park land decision-making, as well as teaching parks planning at the University of Alberta. The vlog's intended audience is quite diverse and includes elected officials, planning professionals, landscape architects, community engagement practitioners, recreationists, academics, and community social actors. I have a Phd also in sarcasm, and like to use self deprecating humour, not to mention lots of adjectives and adverbs.
If there is one overriding theme inherent in my vlog, it is this! Park planning and park service operationalization policy practices are structurally integrated AND nuanced at both the macro and micro level. Process matters. Context matters. Knowledge transfer matters. Transparency matters.
Todays Ice Sculpture: Natures Jake Brakes
This is the first of three ice sculptures on sensory story telling to “show” how people experience parks as opposed to “telling” or sharing my knowledge or experiences. As the name might suggest, this describes storytelling articulating how people experience the world through their own on-board sensory systems (i.e., see, hear, touch, smell, taste, etc). Senses turn spaces into places, and connect individuals not only to nature, themselves, or their community, as well as leisure benefit research and outcomes. I will first introduce you to a story about Heritage Wetlands and Canada Geese in Sherwood Park Alberta called, called “Natures Jake Brakes.” Part II will be a fullsome description of sensory storytelling as a technique. Part III is a story of our families experiences at our recreational property at Floatingstone Lake, Alberta, near St. Paul, Alberta, called the “Sisterhood of the Travelling Peonies.”
(Note: jake brakes are engine retarder breaks on trucks using the motor to slow the vehicle.)
Natures Jake Brakes
The morning sun streaked across my face, slowly waking me from my troubled slumber. I climb from my warm bed a tired, sore, with an uneasy feeling of instability that has invades my limbs and back each morning. Trust me. The only thing golden about aging is the colour of your urine. I tell myself - get moving, keep moving, don’t think about it, just do it. On this cool grey fall day, with my coat zippered to my neck, I shuffled out the door at a snails pace. This was confirmed as I was soon passed by two younger, fitter happy mums pushing strollers, talking to each other and their infants, their presence announced by their footsteps and voices rising and falling as they passed. The circle of life on full display. We shared quick side glances, nods and brief smiles. I lost sight of them as the serpentine trail wound past me in the distance.
My pace quickened without my knowledge, as my mind wandered into safe but admittedly odd places. I imagined I was in the middle of a dense fresh garden salad of maroon, light and dark green leafy materials. Around me there were vibrant splashed of multi-coloured grape tomatoes, with shards of onions and radishes. I would return home for lunch to eat this leafy menagerie, showered in an Italian vinaigrette dressing. Both my morning ritual and this leafy menagerie were good for me.
My mind began to chase rabbit holes, led by small hopping or scurrying critters on the ground, darting in multiple directions, throwing up the decaying yellow and red leaves in their wake. The noise was both pleasing and disruptive to my wandering mind, as I encouraged them to stay. An angry squirrel chattered his displeasure with me. Not all arrived on foot. Small delicate creatures called to me in their native tongues, peering down at me, only to dart off as I approached. They were mostly indifferent to me. I was no threat, I told them. I was lost in my head, but not really wanting to be found.
Suddenly I screeched to stop beside what had been a watery mirror to my side. Listening. Watching. My jaw dropped to my chest. I could feel my heart beat quicken while standing still. The sky above was full of large, winged neighbours with long necks and broad wings of grey, black and white, circling, hovering. The setting above me looked a bit like angry clouds before a summer storm hits.
Yet these dark clouds were anything but threatening. Waves upon waves began descending in an order seemingly dictated by their incessant honking. I was directly under their flight path to the wetland. They flew mere metres above me as they made their approach. Somehow my ears isolated the stereophonic rhythmic downward “foop foop foop” as the wings passing over me. I could sense the downward thrust of air from above. This sound and picture froze me in place, but not from fear. They would soon touch down on the moist tarmac, slowing their landing with their feet skidding to a measured stop, only rising at the end to brush the water of their shoulders. This rhythmic dance was the natural worlds version of jake breaks, slowing these large creatures gracefully to a halt.
I was speechless. As I looked about, another was frozen in place on the trail like a statue with a bobble head doll, both of us looking and up down. Our eyes met and we could only gesture our wonderment with nods and open mouths and hand gestures. We had become two strangers with a memory only we had, never to speak again unless by accident, not remembering who we had shared that experience with. My walk home was unintentionally hurried to tell my wife of this overwhelming feeling felt in the pit of my stomach. I could no longer feel the cool fall air. At least for this day my pains, stiffness, and the fog of daily living were gone, my batteries fully charged, charged by jumper cables connected to natures version of jake brakes.
Concluding Remarks
I encourage you to read parts II and III mentioned above.
