VICTORIA PARK HOMEtown Reflections

It’s all different now. The City Gardener’s House is gone, and the Mitten Brothers concrete block factory. The lawn bowling club folded a few years ago. Cliff Widdows' amusement park isn’t even a memory anymore, nor the dance pavilion that drew people by the hundreds on warm summer nights. But still, Victoria Park remains what it has been for more than a hundred years: a people place.

Earliest Beginnings

Victoria Park is older than Saskatoon. The old Bone

Trail—originally a Métis and First Nations trade route— used to cut through it. It later became a settler trail. When the Temperance Colonists came in 1883, they built their first ferry crossing here. In 1903, the famous Barr Colonists camped up at the end, near Avenue B.

But the Victoria Park we know today owes its beginnings to those all-important urban amenities: sewer, water and electricity.

When it was first surveyed in 1905, it was just another riverfront subdivision. Soon, most of the properties had been sold, and there were houses and businesses here, including the concrete block factory (where the community garden is now) and the Arctic Ice Company warehouse, which stood where the badminton club is. In 1907, the city built the first electrical generating station and pumping plant where the waterworks are now.

Then in 1911, City Council decided to turn it into a park.

“The New Riversdale Park”

It’s not clear why we needed a park here. The

BY: JEFF O’BRIEN

land alone cost a whopping $90,000—more than twice as much as for all the other city parks at that time combined. Nor was it easy. Some property owners held out for more money. Others were hard to find. In tracking down one owner, a city report notes that, “Ernest Duffus of the Livery Stable should know his whereabouts.” Another was thought to be living “near Coleville.” But our favourite was the guy whose address was given as C/O Bridge Gang, La Pas, NWT, via Hudson Bay Junction.”

But they persevered, and the new park was officially created on December 9, 1911.

Commonly referred to as “Old Powerhouse Park,” it was formally named on December 16, 1913, in honour of Queen Victoria.

In 1944, the city began filling in the bend of the river there and grading the riverbank, which was quite steep. This continued into the early 1970s. It wasn’t just dirt they put in there. Many of Saskatoon’s oldest buildings ended up in Victoria Park. As one-time City Commissioner Carl McLeod remarked in 1985:

“It’s all fill. [The] old Hudson’s Bay building is in there. The old Court House, that too many people thought we should have saved. The old Bank of Montreal building... They’re all in there. It’s high quality rubbish.”

The Municipal Bathing Beach

Opened on July 15, 1925, the Riversdale Swimming Pool is Saskatoon’s oldest public pool. They often called it the “Avenue Itch Pool” in those days, either because it was on Avenue H, or perhaps owing to the primitive method of chlorination used at the time. But before that, people swam at the Municipal Bathing Beach. This was simply an area of the river near where the swimming pool is now. Originally roped off, it was later enclosed by floating wooden docks. There was a lifeguard on duty, and amenities included a diving platform and change rooms. The beach itself was separated into men’s and women’s areas. Despite this, it was an immediate hit when it opened in 1914, echoing with shouts of merriment from the crowd of bathers. “Clearly,” the newspaper remarked, “this was the most sensible thing the Parks Board has done to date.”

Shooting the Chute

The beach closed in 1916 because of dangerously high water levels. When it finally re-opened in 1920, it was bigger and better than ever. They brought in sand to make a proper beach and built new, larger change houses. A paddling pool was constructed for the little ones. In 1922, they added the city’s first ever water slide, a 100-foot-long “water chute” made from an old bowling alley, that you rode down on a toboggan. It was a “thrill-producer for both tobogganists and spectators alike,” the newspaper exulted.

“The

Joy Zone”

In 1923, a local entrepreneur named Cliff Widdows got a five-year concession to run an amusement park there. He built a dance pavilion, brought in a merry-goround and made provision for all manner of concerts, public meetings, dances (sometimes five nights a week), sports, rides and games, along with food and drink stands and other entertainments. Victoria Park was to be an entertainment resort to rival Manitou Lake, and people flocked by the thousands to Saskatoon newest pleasure park, dubbed “the Joy Zone” by the Saskatoon Daily Star.

That year, someone also donated a pair of elk calves to the city, which fenced off a two-and-a-half acre enclosure for them in the park. Later, we got two more, one of which promptly jumped the fence and was never seen again. There may have also been a chained-up bear at the park (it escaped once, but didn’t go far), and even a coatimundi was on display for a time.

But the amusement park ran into financial difficulties. By 1925, it was deeply in debt. When it re-opened that year, it was without Cliff Widdows. The enclosed dance pavilion was gone, too, possibly repossessed and removed by the company that built it. They still had dances there, but on an open-air dance floor (weather permitting). In 1928, the Parks Board chose not to renew the amusement park concession, and the remaining buildings were removed. So, too, was the elk enclosure. The bathing beach was long gone by then, closed for good after the swimming pool opened.

Sports in the Park

There have been sports facilities in Victoria Park almost since the beginning. But the grand-daddy of them all is the Riversdale Lawn Bowling Club, which operated continuously for 85 years starting in 1929, before closing in 2016. Today, there’s a community garden there. The Riverside Badminton and Tennis Clubs are relative newcomers. The Riverside

Tennis Club was originally in Kinsmen Park near the University Bridge, while the Saskatoon Badminton Club was downtown on 19th Street, next to the old arena. In 1965, both faced demolition to make way for bridge construction. Instead, it was decided to move them into a joint facility in Victoria Park, which opened in February, 1966.

Saskatoon Boating Club

In 1940, a group of local sailing enthusiasts formed the Saskatoon Boating Club and petitioned the city for use of a stretch of riverbank in the park. A boathouse with an attached, two-storey clubhouse was built on the foundations of the 1920s dance pavilion. The club was very popular, with social events and annual regattas. But in those days, Saskatoon flushed its raw sewage straight into the river. There was an outfall just upstream of the boathouse and effluent tended to pile up against club’s floating docks, sometimes as much as a foot deep, according to one report. In 1948, the city connected all the river outfalls into a main interceptor sewer, taking it downstream to a central treatment plant, which greatly improved conditions at the Boat Club.

In 1969, the boathouse burned down. By then, the club was already in the process of moving to Blackstrap Lake, although it had planned to take the building with it. For years after that, groups like the Saskatoon Canoe Club pushed for a new boathouse and launch. They were finally built as part of preparations for the 1989 Jeux Canada Games, and officially opened

Lions SkatePark

Built in 2003, the Lions SkatePark was initially a hard sell. A city report had listed several possible sites for it, including G.D. Archibald Park and Kinsmen Park (which was the skateboard community’s preferred location). But in every case, residents and community groups pushed back angrily. Skateboarders, it appeared, were not wanted. Except in Riversdale, which welcomed them with open arms. Construction of the park began in June of 2003, and it officially opened that September. There were problems, with reports of fights, thefts and even someone having a knife pulled on them. Security was hired the following year, and since then, things appear to have settled down.

Reconciliation Circle and the Pagoda

The most recent additions to Victoria Park are the Zhongshan Ting pagoda, and “The Coming Spring,” a commemorative artwork by Canadian artist Gordon Reeves. Commissioned by the Saskatoon Tribal Council and the City of Saskatoon, “The Coming Spring” was unveiled in 2018 as a response to calls to action by the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That area of the park has also been renamed “Reconciliation Circle.” The pagoda, which was built in 2015, commemorates the experiences of the first Chinese immigrants to Saskatoon.

And with them, the past and present come full circle, here in Saskatoon’s beautiful and historic Victoria Park.

Jeff O’Brien