For my first walk as part of my Kelowna Parks Challenge, I took a trip around the southern part of Downtown Kelowna on Monday, visiting five of the parks on the Official List. I started at the Kelowna Library, then made a loop by visiting Kasugai Gardens, Stuart Park, Kerry Park, City Park, and Anchor Park. As promised, I visited every part of each park by travelling along all of the paths. I’m going to consider City Park incomplete, though, because I didn’t get all the way to the southern end.
Even though it’s not on the Official List, and is not, in fact, a city park, I started at the library to highlight their front lawn. It is a nice splash of green open space in a neighbourhood where the buildings are only going to get taller. Plus, it has a great spinning sculpture of a Moebius strip that kids love to play on.
Kasugai Gardens
From the library, it was a short walk across Doyle Avenue and past Memorial Arena to the Kasugai Gardens. This walled Japanese garden, complete with koi pond and zen rock garden is right behind city hall. It is full of beautiful spots and moments and is the perfect retreat from the urban vibe without ever feeling less than civilized.
Dog rules: This park does not allow dogs (or bicycles).
Stuart Park
Exiting the garden towards Queensway, I made my way around City Hall to Stuart Park. A fairly new park (opened in 2010), it makes great use of the waterfront lots formerly occupied by the city’s Law Courts.
This park has three sections, the magnificent Bear sculpture, symbolizing the city via its namesake, a full-size rink, which is frozen in the winter for communal skating, and a lawn at the north end. Though I didn’t see anyone roller-skating on the rink, there was a table tennis table set up which was in constant use while I was there. Also, there is a giant chess board in the northwest corner complete with giant pieces.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There are two All User washrooms underneath the Bear, which you can access from the Waterfront Walkway. There are drinking fountains there, too, including one for dogs around the corner. The washrooms are open from 8am to 8pm year-round and to 10pm in the summer.
Kerry Park
This park feels like a transitional space, and I might have to visit it a few more times before I get a sense of its overall character. It has several interesting features, but they didn’t give me the sense of a unified presentation.
In this park, you will find a small stage, the famous Ogopogo sculpture, and The Spirit of Sail, which everyone calls the Sails. From the Waterfront Walkway, you can rent electric scooters, arrange for a parasail ride and access the town’s Marina. There are a couple of small beaches, too. I waded at one of them but wasn’t knee-deep before I encountered thick patches of milfoil all the way along. There was a small child there, however, who was having a great time playing on the sand and at the water’s edge.
Dog rules: The beach located in the joint where Kerry Park meets City Park (see the photo below), allows dogs off-leash in the early morning.
City Park
Though I am not yet certain, I think this is the oldest park in the city. From what I’ve read, this land was never used for commercial, residential or industrial purposes. Technically it was ranchland in the late 1800s, but even then it was more of a lakeside marsh than a grassland. Today, I’m not sure if any of the original trees are present since most of those I saw were not native to the region, but the land continues to be a much-valued green space.
This was by far the largest park I visited on this trip. Since it is so central to the downtown core of the city, all of it has been developed and none of it remains wild. Here you will find playing areas for tennis, soccer, basketball, beach volleyball and lawn bowling. There is a large playground as well as a recently repaired and renovated water park. More soberly, this park is the site of Kelowna’s cenotaph as well as a rose garden, both developed in partnership with the sister city of Veendam, in the Netherlands.
The north and west sides of the park are lakefront and are lined by more of the Waterfront Walkway. Though Cold Sands Beach on the north side washed away when the Okanagan Lake Bridge was built, Hot Sands Beach on the west side is still intact. One of the highlights of my day was going for a swim there. It gets deep relatively quickly, but not so quick there isn’t enough room for children to play.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: I spotted two sets of washrooms in this park and three drinking fountains. There are washrooms by the waterpark and by the beach volleyball courts, and there are drinking fountains by the Kerry Park entrance, by the skate park and by the beach vollyball courts. The washrooms are open from 8am to 8pm year-round and to 10pm in the summer.
Anchor Park
After my swim, I could tell I was starting to wear out. I had brought water but forgot to bring a snack. I decided to head back toward the middle of downtown to close the loop, and left the southern end of City Park for another adventure.
My last stop, on the way back, was at Anchor Park. I travelled along Harvey Avenue to get there. Normally, I prefer to find routes off of busy streets, but this was the most direct. Sometimes I find it is good to do things the less pleasant way to remind myself why my preferences are what they are.
This park might be the smallest in the city. It takes up just the corner of the lot on the northeast corner of Ellis Street and Harvey Avenue. The centrepiece of the park is one of the enormous concrete anchors that were used to hold the original floating bridge across Okanagan Lake. The original bridge and the new William R. Bennett bridge were both engineering marvels, and I understand why that was worth celebrating with a monument.
Reflections
Developing a Downtown
Walking through Downtown Kelowna is a great opportunity to see a city in the process of growing and modernizing. I’ve walked through small towns and I’ve walked through big cities and in Kelowna I can see elements of both.
Kelowna’s Official Community Plan intends to contain sprawl by focusing growth in the city’s five city centres. Downtown is the farthest along in that process, and it shows. S.M. Simpson’s gift of the Civic Precinct in 1946 along with the more recent designation of the Cultural District have provided Kelowna with a wonderfully vibrant core.
Walking through the neighbourhood, I noticed two things that I always delight in when in denser cities. The first is random, little open spaces. Personally, I find streets laid out on a grid to be a bit dull, so curved paths and irregularly shaped nooks always brighten up my walks. The library lawn is a perfect example of both.
Meanwhile, Anchor Park is a perfect example of the second thing: old monuments. It is hard to imagine that park as a destination, but it definitely contributes to the building of a cultural critical mass in the city. The large anchor, squeezed into the corner of an office block parking lot, reminds me of the glorious detritus of the centuries that you encounter around every corner when going on a walk through a city like London or Paris. There might not be a lot of people making a big deal about pieces like the anchor, but they are worth celebrating as they accumulate.
Historical Perspective
One of the things I love to do when I walk through a city is to imagine what it was like at different stages of its history. In Kelowna, there are few better places for that than downtown. Standing in Kerry Park, at the end of Bernard Avenue might not give you the overview you get at the Knox Mountain Lookout, but it puts you right in the middle of where the action has been for over one hundred years. Surrounding you are elements placed over the decades: the new Visitor Centre (2018), the Sails (1977), the Ogopogo (1960).
It is difficult now to imagine that almost all of the areas I walked through on this adventure were once the soggy grounds of a sawmill. I find it easier to imagine them as the marshy lakeshore they were before the town was established. At least the lake is still there!
Wildlife
One of the best rewards when going on a walk is seeing wildlife. In addition to the koi in the pond at Kasugai Gardens, this trip I spotted American Dippers, which I hadn’t identified before, in both Kasugai Gardens and on the beach in Kerry Park, as well as a hummingbird in City Park. That was all on top of the people watching, which isn’t exactly the same thing but is easy to do downtown.
What to Bring
Every walk is a chance to practice the art of what to bring. This time, I remembered to wear sunscreen and a hat and bring my water bottle. I forgot to bring a snack (and wished I had) and ought to have worn shoes and socks rather than sandals.
Conclusion
All in all, this adventure was a great start to my challenge. Now the clock is ticking. I have until July 21, 2020, to see all of the items on my list. Now, I know five parks in one day seems like a lot. If I visit five parks a week, I’ll be done in eight months. Nevertheless, I am not ready to be so confident. I don’t think it will always be so easy to reach five parks in one day, let alone in an area so easy to access.
Yesterday’s adventure left me feeling like a tourist in my own town, which is a great feeling for the summer or any time. I can’t wait for my next adventure and the chance to tell you all about it.
Let me know your own impressions or stories about the places I visited!
