"Spruce Grove, bedroom community for Edmonton" Spruce Grove by Darby2

This small city of 16,000 is a bustling hub of activity in The County of Parkland. It's a bedroom community of Edmonton and also a busy commercial and service center for construction, agriculture, and oil field industry. It is also the processing center for the honey industry in Alberta.

As for cultural activities, the Grove's chief attraction is the Horizon Stage located in Spruce Grove Composite High School. The Horizon attracts local and national performers in a very intimate theatre with a capacity of about 300. Just recently opened in the summer of 2002 is the new $20 Million Tri-Centre sports complex withindor soccer fields, swimming pools, and restaurants. The local weekly newspaper is the Spruce Grove Examiner published jointly with the Stony Plain Reporter.

A project to save one of the last remaining grain elevators in Spruce Grove has been a success as well. The surrounding area is a rich agricultural area producing a diversity of crops including wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, raspberries, canola and hay.

Golden orchids

Some frorward thinking individuals set aside the unique parcel of land for its wonderful diversity of flora and fauna. It's left in it's natural state with meadows, forest, marl bogs.

The place hosts more than 12 varieties of native orchids.

The tiny St Matthew's Lutheran cemetery lies alongside the CN Rail main line, just south of Highway 16A at the corner of Campsite Road.

Many of the earliest pioneers lie here, including many children who died in infancy, some on the same day they were born. Photos will follow soon.