News and Events
News and Updates
- Letter to City Council and Community Services (PDF)
- Tuesday, October 7, 2008: Community Services Meeting at 1:30PM at City Hall
2008
- January 21, 2008
Monthly Meeting
7:00PM
Strathcona Community League Bldg
101 St & 87th Avenue - March 1 and 2, 2008
Fundraising
Casino Bacarat Casino
Volunteers are needed call Joscelyn 468-4053 - Spring/Summer – tentatively construction begins on our new facility
- June 15th - report due back to Community Services for feasibility of using the Kinsmean Park site to rebuild the pool.
- August 2
86th Anniversary of the Opening of the Original Queen E Pool - October 29, 2008,
7PM
AGM
Strathcona Community League; 101 St & 87th Avenue
2009
- August 2
87th Anniversary of the Opening of the Original Queen E Pool
Update, November 2005
In August 2005 Edmonton City Councilors agreed to consider a $4.1 million pool rebuild and will vote November 24th/25th on whether to include this project in the 2006 municipal Budget. City administration is proposing to build a state of the art pool, equipped with a spray park, waterfall, lazy river and hot tub. The pool could once again become a focal point in the river valley, as it was when it first opened 84 years ago!
A 2005 phone survey demonstrated that support for outdoor swimming in Edmonton has grown. A stunning 80 per cent of Edmontonians supported having a city subsidy to maintain the pool. Seven out of ten noted that the river valley experience is enhanced by the availability of outdoor pools.
Since 1990 the Friends of the Queen E. Pool Society has been working tirelessly to get the historic Queen Elizabeth Pool refurbished or rebuilt.
In 2003, due to structural failures the pool was permanently closed.We continually pushed Administration and Council to revisit the decision. While the initial thoughts were that the ground was unstable, in fact it is very stable and a perfect site to rebuild such a facility.
It has always been the position of the Society that all we are trying to achieve is to maintain a special feature for Edmonton families - something that was part of the the original impetus in 1922 which led to the building of Western Canada's first outdoor pool. As is true to Edmonton folklore, we built something that was the envy of many cities, and despite a lack of support from the City, the pool lasted 81 years and each year people kept on coming.
Our goal as a society was to merely build a simple pool, but public input has provided us with many ideas to expand features at the pool that will make it even more appealing to families during the summer months.
Update from the City of Edmonton, Community Services, January 2005
A midwinter night's dream takes a dip in the Queen E pool
Scott McKeen
The Edmonton Journal
September 3, 2004
So I'm thinking of a winter evening, cold, but not unbearably so.
Soft, falling snow dusts the evergreen canopy. The night sky shimmers with northern lights, visible through the rising steam from my comfy spot in the Queen Elizabeth Pool.
In this sanctuary just below Saskatchewan Drive, overlooking Kinsmen Park and Rossdale, the sounds of the city are but a whisper.
In my mind, I lean back and enjoy the relaxing warmth of the hot pool. I close my eyes and think of how the Queen Elizabeth Pool was at one time virtually condemned -- how it was left in critical condition for years.
The entire 2004 swimming season was lost due to the pool's cracking, mouldy state. City Hall looked on impassively, ordering no extraordinary measures be taken until a geological study of the area was completed.
I think of how Queen E was built in 1922, the first city pool in Western Canada. It was welcomed on August 3 that year with a banner headline in the Edmonton Bulletin, which predicted it would become one of the city's most popular resorts.
"It is delightfully situated in what is generally recognized as the city's most beautiful park; it is commodious, well designed and equipped," wrote The Bulletin.
The newspaper went on to say how the beguiling location and glassy, green waters of the pool conjured up images of "sweet water nymphs." I'm not surprised. Queen E pool does inspire fantasies and fantastic notions.
While pragmatists believe the pool simply needs minor repairs, others have dreamed big dreams. They have a vision for Queen E as more than a community pool.
Not that there is anything wrong with community pools. In this day and age of mega-sized multiplexes -- pools, fitness centres, soccer fields and hockey rinks under the same roof -- small recreation facilities are a blessed alternative.
Queen E pool is to multiplexes what butcher shops or bakeries are to modern regional supermarkets. All these one-off places have soul and charm. They just feel right somehow.
Some of it is nostalgia, a powerful emotional force. Most of us swam as kids in outdoor pools like Queen E.
But let's get back to our visionaries, our dreamers of big dreams. They've argued for years that Queen E would be a perfect year-round facility -- swimming pool in summer months, heated spa in the winter. They argued that outdoor hot pools work well in other winter locales. The Jasper Park Lodge keeps its pool going year-round.
Can you imagine bringing Edmonton visitors to the Queen Elizabeth Pool and Spa, to soak up a brisk winter evening in the hot waters?
Frankly, Edmonton does a terrible job of marketing our winter city to people in warm climates. A heated outdoor spa would be an ideal centrepiece, a unique winter experience for tourists.
Cross-country skiers could stop at the pool to soak their muscles. Imagine a warming dip after skating at Hawrelak Park or walking the valley trails.
A group of citizens have thrown numerous ideas at city council over the years to save Queen E pool, to no avail. Some firmly believe City Hall has an institutional bias against outdoor pools and wants them closed and dismantled.
I think administration's back is against the wall.
For example, when this council finished picking over the last budget, it then demanded the city manager find another $3.46 million in cuts.
Yet, whenever administration brings in a major cut, like it did recently with a plan to abolish trolley buses, council balks. So facilities like the Queen E pool end up in budget limbo for years.
Enter John Stobbe, an active Edmonton volunteer who believes the time is right to save Queen E pool. As he says, council is being asked to spend $50,000 on a gift to the Queen, on her royal visit to Alberta next year.
Stobbe asks: why not put that amount into the pool, to leverage additional funds out of the province, which is hosting the Queen's visit? Wouldn't it be an appropriate and delightful gift to the Queen, to rebuild the pool named after the Queen Mother? Wouldn't it be fitting to refurbish the pool in her honour?
Wouldn't it also be delightful to have it open year-round?
Swim in summer, but return to Queen E in winter for a soothing soak amidst the frost and snow.
It's a delightful vision to conjure up, even without those sweet water nymphs.
reprinted with permission from Scott McKeen, smckeen@thejournal.canwest.com
Queen Elizabeth Pool Faces an Uncertain Future
by Lawrence Herzog
Canada Day heralds the official beginning of the busy time of the year for Edmonton’s outdoor pools, but this year, the vintage pool at Queen Elizabeth Pool is eerily quiet. The 82-year-old pool, the city’s oldest, has been closed since its concrete tank developed a serious crack and lost most of its water last September.
Last week, city council’s community service committee voted to permanently pull the plug on the pool in the North Saskatchewan River valley near 105th Street and Queen Elizabeth Park Road. A city report estimates it would cost at least $1 million to bring the Queen Elizabeth Pool back into operation or $2.6 million to replace the facility entirely.
The report also says fixing the tank and installing a new flexible liner would cost $400,000, while additional mechanical work requires $225,000. The city would also have to spend $375,000 upgrading shower rooms to meet the current building code and some work may also be needed to stabilize the hillside. The investment isn’t likely to increase attendance, which has average 15,000 visits a year over the last four years, and there is unused capacity at Edmonton’s other four outdoor pools, the report states.
But city council has been moving away from fixing outdoor facilities, opting instead to invest money in year-round facilities. Councillor Michael Phair, who represents the ward where the pool is located, believes the site should be restored entirely and not just repaired.
“It’s a beautiful pool in a gorgeous location. I think if it were modernized, we’d see usage go up, and new technology would make it more energy efficient and it would last well into the future.” He also believes that closing the pool goes against the city’s stated commitment to accessible recreation facilities in older neighbourhoods.
The group Friends of Queen Elizabeth Pool agree and have been fighting to have the pool repaired and re-opened. I’ve always thought the restful and invigorating location would be great for a spa facility and, if we had some vision and leadership, the outdoor pool could be given a retractable cover so it could be used into the cooler months.
Phair believes the city cannot ignore its seasonal facilities and rejects the argument that the expenditure is too great for a facility used only in the warmer months. “We operate outdoor sports fields that are only used in the summer and its part of our northern culture that outdoor pools are only used for the summer months. But that’s part of what makes them special and precious.”
Edmonton’s love affair with water has been nurtured since its formative years. Even though the hot season lasts barely four months -- or perhaps because of it! -- Edmontonians adore their outdoor pools.
The “hottest day in 20 years” welcomed the opening of Edmonton’s South Side municipal swimming pool on August 2nd, 1922. “It is delightfully situated at what is generally recognized as the city’s most beautiful park,” the Edmonton Bulletin said of the new facility in what was then Riverside Park and is now called Queen Elizabeth Park.
The article continued: “The bath looked very inviting for the deep green of the water gave back the reflections of the surrounding trees, and conjured up images of sweet water nymphs disporting in forest recesses.” It was the start of a love affair with Queen Elizabeth Pool that has endured for 80 years.
The South Side Pool in Riverside Park proved to be such a hit that the City moved quickly to build more outdoor pools. In 1924, the West End and Borden Park pools opened. “The last shreds of the season of winter are to be formally banished from Edmonton with the opening of the city’s ‘beach’ to bathers,” an article in the May 2nd edition of the Edmonton Journal reported.
At Borden Park, the new East End Pool boasted a state-of-the-art swimming tank with “clean and comfortable” dressing rooms and lifeguards on deck at all times. “The immediate surroundings of the pool are ideal,” reported a September 20th, 1924 newspaper story. “They please the eye and soothe the mind. The red and gray of the main building; the red roofs; all canopied over by the blue sky, and encircling an inviting-looking sheet of water, form a picture not easily forgotten.”
At the time, the pool was one of the first places to offer “mixed bathing” by men and women, which sparked considerable controversy. The three early pools cost the City about $25,000 each to build and, as thousands of citizens flocked to them through the hot summers, revenues easily covered operating expenses.
All three facilities boasted constant circulation of water, with sophisticated filtering and heating systems for their day. “Pumps draw away water at the deep end through several outlets and this water is pumped into the combination pumping, heating and filtering plant before being again discharged into the pool,” the Journal explained. City authorities tested the pools for bacterial contamination daily.
In the mid 1920s, admission was 25 cents for adults and 15 cents for youngsters. Through the 1920s, the Dirty 30s and the war torn and oil discovery years of the 1940s, Edmonton’s outdoor pools were places for a world weary populace to relax and unwind.
Between 1939 and 1950, attendance at the three pools jumped 35 per cent. During one hot summer in the late 1940s, when the city’s population was about 115,000, there were more than 100,000 visits to the West End Pool in less than four months of summer operation.
That popularity helped convince taxpayers to vote “yes” to construct a new one in a money vote in the 1950 civic election. But it wasn’t to be for three more years, when work began on a new Mill Creek Swimming Pool. The pool opened for its first season in 1954.
The West End Pool was enlarged in 1952, with new bleachers and a new filter system that could clean the water with up to 700 bathers in the pool. It was renamed the Oliver Pool in 1975. The original dressing rooms at Borden Park and Queen Elizabeth pools were ripped down and rebuilt in the 1950s.
Over their many years of operation, Edmonton’s outdoor pools have faced countless challenges and calamities, such as a 1990 flood of Mill Creek that damaged equipment in the mechanical room. Queen Elizabeth Pool has survived with relatively inexpensive patch jobs since 1983 and city staff has repeatedly recommended closing it. City council put it on life support five years ago when it decided not to invest money on any major repairs.
Losing Queen Elizabeth Pool would mean losing a part of our history. If the pool stays boarded up, we’ll forfeit future generations the chance to enjoy a restful and invigorating dip in the warm summer air, alive with the aroma of poplar and the exuberant sounds of children at play. On a hot Edmonton summer day, there are few better places to be.
Article reprinted with permission of the author.
© 2004 www.lawrenceherzog.com