BATTLEFORD — One or two weeks each summer, Pat and Susan Inglis from Spruce Grove, Alta., travel the country volunteering to clean commemorative plaques.
Pat is a retired employee of Parks Canada who has been volunteering his time for five years and Susan has been doing the same for three years.
In fact, there is a national network of retired Parks Canada employees who do this work across Canada. The Inglises say they do this so they can free up time for the present-day employees to concentrate on their work with national parks.
Pat worked for Parks Canada for 13 years: five years in Jasper, Alta.; three years in the Calgary Regional Office, Alta.; and five years in Fort St. James in northern British Columbia.
In Battleford last week, the Inglises cleaned up the plaque at the former Government House, the one at the Court of King’s Bench building in and the one in the park across from Battleford Furniture.
Later in the day they were heading to Saskatoon to clean two plaques inside the University of Saskatchewan and two on the exterior. Then they were to travel north of Saskatoon to do three more.
Then they were planning to head to Prince Albert to do two more before heading home.
When asked why they volunteer their time and energy, they exclaimed that they get to see country they haven’t seen before and meet very interesting people.
