Kelowna Parks Challenge – Trip #22
This week I visited the Okanagan Mission for the first time as part of the Kelowna Parks Challenge. I crossed Mission Creek and visited two parks on its south side: Mission Recreation Park and Thomson Marsh Park. Though they were technically two separate parks they were originally the same property and still feel like two parts of the same whole.
Read on for my impressions and reflections
The Mission
Because the two parks I visited on this trip were side-by-side, I didn’t really walk around any neighbourhoods, but let me say a few things about the Mission, since this was my first visit there as part of the Challenge.
Origins
Okanagan Mission is the oldest European settlement in the Okanagan Valley, and Mission Recreation Park sits very close to the site of the original buildings near Mission Creek. The settlement was founded by Father Pandosy, who came to the Valley in 1859. After spending a cold winter in what is now Ellison (north of Rutland), he chose the sandy cove at the mouth of Mission Creek as the site of his homestead.
Pandosy attracted other settlers to stay in the valley, often francophones in the beginning. The town grew and farmland was cleared around it. A lot of that land was marsh and swamp, of course, and was flooded by Okanagan Lake as well as by Mission Creek every year. The site of the current Mission Recreation Park was no different. It was farmed by the Thomson family, who, it is said, could only grow celery and onions.
Twentieth Century
In 1891, Bernard Lequime, son of Eli Lequime, who ran the Mission’s general store and post office, bought the lakeside land north of Mill Creek and laid out the townsite of Kelowna. For the next eighty years, the two towns were known as distinct communities, separated by acres of swamp, where the rutted roads were not always reliable.
In 1973, the provincial government amalgamated the disparate communities of the Mission Creek lowlands and created the modern city of Kelowna. Nowadays, Okanagan Mission is known as a beautiful bedroom community, more of a suburb than the separate town it once was. Many of my remaining parks lie within its historic boundaries, and I am looking forward to visiting them and getting to know it better.
The Trip
My whole walk this week was around the grounds of the Mission Recreation Park. Like much of the surrounding land, the site was originally farmland, carved from the native swamp by the Thomson Family. In 1972, when the Province created the Agricultural Land Reserve, this site and many others in the Mission were included.
In the 1980s, Mayor Jim Stuart (whose name graces Stuart Park) and the Kelowna city council recognized that the people of the Mission needed a large recreation ground of their own. Unfortunately, there were no large, undeveloped properties left south of Mission Creek. So began a long struggle with the Agricultural Land Commission, whose important job it is to prevent rare and valuable agricultural land from being developed for other purposes.
Eventually, a deal was made, and the Thomson Family sold the city a section of their farmland in 1992. Today it is a well-used civic resource, visited by people from all over Kelowna and beyond.
Thomson Marsh Park
This narrow, L-shaped nature preserve was created as a separate park according to the terms of the deal made between the City of Kelowna and the Thomson Family in 1992. Because the original wetlands had all been drained and filled many decades earlier, a new series of connected ponds was created along the southern and eastern border of the Mission Recreation Park.
Since this is a nature preserve, no paths lead into this park; however, a wonderful trail parallels the marsh’s sinuous border. Because the wetland is not wide, you can see all of it from this trail. Even as a relatively new wetland, this park provides precious habitat and resources to a large number of animals. Visiting in the winter, I saw mallards, buffleheads, and a hawk, but beavers, muskrats, herons, and others are said to visit.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Because it is a nature preserve with no trails, dogs are not allowed in this park.
Mission Recreation Park
‘Recreation Park’ is one of the four park types in the city of Kelowna (the others are: Community, Nature, and Neighbourhood). Each of the major sections of Kelowna has its own recreation park and this is the one for Okanagan Mission. As such, it is packed with opportunities for indoor and outdoor play.
For indoor recreation, this park hosts H2O, an aquatic centre with several pools featuring waterslides and surfing, as well as the Capital News Centre, a recreation centre with fitness facilities, including ice rinks and indoor fields, a library branch, a physiotherapy clinic, and a restaurant. Outdoors, there are multiple playing fields for soccer and baseball.
Additionally, other great features have been fit in around the edges of the park. The Michaelbrook Community Garden, the Michaelbrook Marsh, and the Mission Dog Park all sit on the north side of the park. Past them, the park’s northern edge is lined by Mission Creek and the Mission Creek Greenway, a wonderful urban trail that will take you from Okanagan Lake to Black Mountain.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: I found no drinking fountain in this park. I found three washrooms in this park, a portable one between the soccer fields in the southeast quadrant, a portable one amid the baseball diamonds surrounding the Kinsmen Media Centre, and also seasonal ones in the Kinsmen Fieldhouse. There are also washrooms in H2O and the Capital News Centre.
Dog Rules: Dogs are allowed in this park. Because of the playing fields, they must be on-leash and on trails in most of the park. The Mission Dog Park, however, is an off-leash area.
Reflections
Recreation Parks
Recreation parks serve an important function in the city. With their large size and plentiful features, they are a precious shared resource and a desirable destination drawing visitors from near and far.
So far, the city has three well-established recreation parks: Parkinson Recreation Park, Mission Recreation Park, and Rutland Recreation Park. Due to its recent increase in population, Glenmore has also been granted one as well. It was cleared and drained in 2018, last year the playing fields were seeded, and it should be ready to welcome players this fall.
In both Parkinson Recreation Park and Mission Recreation Park, the only two I have visited so far, I was delighted not just by the number of fields and playspaces they had but also by the way they each had natural features that had been well-incorporated into them. In Parkinson Recreation Park, the natural course of Mill Creek has been respected and the trail along it makes for a lovely walk, while in Mission Recreation Park, the trail along Thomson Creek provides a similar experience, while the Michaelbrook Marsh and the connection to the Mission Greenway are equally valuable.
Conclusion
Though the cold winter weather continues here in Kelowna, so does my parks project! I am finding it a stimulating challenge to decide which parks to visit in the snow and which to wait on.
Including this week’s two parks, I have now visited ninety-eight of the two hundred and three parks on the Official List in one hundred and seventy-four days, or 48% of the parks in 47% of the days. Still ahead of pace, but barely.
Thanks for reading, and leave me a comment if you have one! What wintry wonderland will I wander through next week? Come back next Friday to find out!
