Motorcyclists' memorial ride commemorates father killed in Anthony Henday crash

About 60 motorcyclists rode through Edmonton together on Father's Day in remembrance ofa father killed earlier this month after his motorcycle hit a deer on Anthony HendayDrive.

• Motorcyclist dies after hitting deer on Anthony Henday

The group gathered at Edmonton's city hall Sunday morning and began the memorial ride shortly after 11 a.m.

The route wove through downtown streets, along the river valley,and included a roadside stop onthe Henday, where the riders held a moment of silence.

Marc-Andre Helie, 36, was seriously injuredafter hismotorcycle hit a deer around 1:30 a.m. on June 9, police said at the time. He later died in hospital.

His wife, Stephanie Stuetz, 28, died in a head-on collision on Anthony HendayDrive on October 7, 2017.

Helie and Stuetz,had three young children one boy and two girls.

• 'This tragedy is just beyond belief': Separate crashes, 8 months apart, claim Edmonton parents

"No family should have to go through that kind of trauma," said Cory Bacon, who organized the memorial ride.

He said the family was touched by the gesture but not able to attend the event.

'He was such a great guy'

Many of the riders who came to pay their respects had never met Helie.

"They missed a heck of an opportunity because he was such a great guy," said Cory Duncan, one of Helie's friends and colleagues.

Duncan said Helie was a loving father and hard worker who believed in riding responsibly.

"Everybody that knew him has been affected pretty deeply by this," he said.

New program aims to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions

Five people die and more than 300 people are injured in wildlife-vehicle collisions in Alberta every year, provincial statistics show.

A new project with the aim ofreducingthe number of collisions now trackswhere they occur.

Under the new Alberta Wildlife Watch Program, government workers and contractors canuse a mobile app to report animal sightings and carcasses onhighways. Those reports couldhelp identify dangerous locations or opportunities for road design changes.