Kelowna Parks Challenge – Trip #11
Last week I went out for another adventure to discover city parks in Kelowna, BC, as part of my Kelowna Parks Challenge. I visited five great parks! Read on to hear about my impressions and reflections.
The Trip
For this adventure, I started in Millbridge Park and travelled up Mill Creek to the park that surrounds the Parkinson Recreation Centre. Along the way, I passed through the Capri-Landmark urban centre, one of five urban centres in Kelowna.
This neighbourhood is especially interesting right now since the twenty-year development plan for it just came out this past April. I am always fascinated by the transformations that come with urban development, so it was great to have a look at the neighbourhood before the plan starts to be implemented.
Millbridge Park
This beautiful park runs along both sides of Mill Creek between Ethel Street and Gordon Drive. With a wide path running the length of the park, it provides an excellent example of what a creekside urban trail can be. I know the city plans to eventually develop a linear park along the whole length of Mill Creek, and Millbridge Park is a showcase for what that might look like.
The section of the creek that runs here is also intended as an example of how salmon can be welcomed back to this part of the city. Running through such a long-time residential neighbourhood as this, Mill Creek is strictly armoured and controlled in many places, providing an inhospitable environment for a healthy stream ecosystem. In Millbridge Park, however, the creek was rehabilitated in 1997, and specific salmon-friendly features were constructed. Judging from what I saw, the ducks like it, too.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Dogs are allowed in this park, but only on-leash.
Stillingfleet Park
Southeast of Millbridge Park, away from the creek, Stillingfleet Park is a well-designed neighbourhood park. Sitting in the centre of the residential area bounded by Gordon Drive, Springfield Road, Burtch Road, and Guisachan Road, it is the only park in that area. Walking there, I got the impression that the whole area had been developed around the same time (1970s?) and that the park had been included as part of the area plan.
This park reminded me a lot of neighbourhood parks I knew growing up in the 1980s. It had a playground, a lawn, and picnic tables, and it had a familiar selection of trees: scotch pines, lindens, and plane trees, a tulip tree, and a ginkgo. Overall, I thought the balance of treed and open space was nearly perfect. As a special feature, this park had one amenity I haven’t found in any other park yet: horseshoe pitches.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Because this park is primarily a playground, dogs are not allowed in this park.
Pacific Park
Entering Capri-Landmark from the southwest, I came first to Pacific Park. Sitting on the banks of Mill Creek, this park appears to have had its origin as just another neighbourhood park named after the street it’s on. Judging from the design of the playground and other park furniture, it has recently been renovated, but according to the Capri-Landmark Plan, further changes are in store.
Over the next few decades, once the city has acquired the adjacent properties, Pacific Park will be expanded to extend all the way from Lindahl Street in the south to Sutherland Avenue in the north, providing a stronger recreational centre of gravity to a neighbourhood that is expected to see its population increase through densification.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Dogs are allowed in this park, but only on-leash.
Mary-Ann Collinson Memorial Park
This is another neighbourhood park, charming not least because of its triangular shape. Occupying the space between Devonshire Avenue and Pridham Avenue, this is another park the city would like to expand. In this case, there are only two residential lots between the western edge of the park and Capri Street and the city would like to acquire them. On the other side of Capri Street is a large lot currently occupied by the Capri Centre Mall, but the Capri-Landmark Plan has a redevelopment of that lot as one of its showpieces.
This park offered me a great contrast with Stillingfleet Park. Both were similar-sized neighbourhood parks but the design details showed they were built a couple of decades apart. In particular, the selection of trees was different. Here there were oaks, ashes, and catalpas, reflecting the fashions of a more mid-century era. Mary-Ann Collinson, the police constable’s daughter for whom the park was named, died at eighteen in 1964, so it is possible the park was made then, but my guess is that this park is older and was only renamed after her death.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Because this park is primarily a playground, dogs are not allowed in this park.
Parkinson Recreation Park
This large and thorough park sits today near the centre of Kelowna and provides recreational services of all kinds to residents. A family farm until 1964, it was acquired by the city as a site for the new recreation centre. Opened in 1973 the Parkinson Recreation Centre has multi-purpose rooms and a swimming pool and has now been augmented by the addition of the Parkinson Activity Centre for seniors; a great place to get a cheap lunch, I am told!
The park surrounding the rec centre has been packed with facilities, like a fitness loop, basketball nets, a community garden and a children’s playground. Mill Creek runs diagonally through the entire site with a walking path along its length. On the other side of the creek from the rec centre are playing fields for cricket and soccer, as well as sets of both tennis and pickleball courts. At the north end of the site is the Apple Bowl, which is used for football games as well as track and field meets.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There are eight washrooms in this park. 1: in the Recreation Centre, 2: at the tennis courts, 3: at the entrance to the Apple Bowl parking lot, 4: on the south side of the Apple Bowl parking lot, 5-8: around the track in the Apple Bowl.
Dog Rules: Dogs are allowed in this park, but only on-leash. They are not allowed on the playing fields or the playground.
Reflections
Creeks
As I have said before, creeks are one of my favourite organizing principles for a walk. Whether travelling upstream into the wilderness or downstream towards more settled areas, I believe the transition is a mythically profound psychological experience.
On this trip, I travelled upstream along Mill Creek for part of its lower reaches, but I didn’t transition out of its suburban phase. The areas I traversed were older residential areas of the city, and what was interesting this time was seeing the way the historical channelization of the creek has started to soften and break down. The city has a longterm plan to establish a linear park along the entire length of the creek, and it is fun to see it begin to take shape.
I should also mention, that, though it was invisible on this adventure, the Capri-Landmark Plan includes the intention to daylight a tributary of Mill Creek, Ritchie Brook, which will flow west out of the Landmark neighbourhood. They estimate it will take about twenty years just to acquire the land, so it might be thirty years before we hear the brook babbling again.
History
Several interesting historical perspectives revealed themselves on this walk. From the subtle differences in neighbourhood park design between Mary-Ann Collinson Park, Stillingfleet Park, and the newly redeveloped Pacific Park, to the story (still unknown to me) of the death of Mary-Ann Collinson, it was possible to see several layers of Kelowna’s history in this area.
Also historically important was the establishment of the Parkinson Recreation Centre. In 1969 city council made a controversial choice in deciding to build the rec centre with the insurance money from the fire that destroyed the Aquatic Centre, which had been a nexus of city life for decades, rather than rebuild that lakeshore facility. Now, however, the benefits of such a comprehensive central facility are clear.
Future
The densification and improvement of the Capri-Landmark urban centre will provide me with a banquet of scrumptious projects to visit and revisit over the years. Along with seasonal change and natural disaster, park development and redevelopment provide some of the strongest rewards for going for the same walk over and over again.
Conclusion
With the visiting of these five parks, I have now seen fifty-three of the 203 parks on the Kelowna Parks Challenge List in eighty-seven days. That’s 26% of the parks in 24% of the days. That moves me ahead a little, in terms of pace. It is exciting to be a quarter of the way done!
