Bowness Park, Calgary

Bowness Park is a 30ha urban park on the Bow River in Bowness, a neighbourhood in the north-west quadrant of the City of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is popular in the summer for picnics and boating, and in winter for ice skating on the lagoon and the canal which feeds it.The park was closed to the public for safety reasons after the major flood which hit Calgary in June 2013. The west half of the park reopened in November 2014, and the east half of the park is expected to reopen in summer 2016. Among other attractions, a ridable miniature railway operates seasonally in the park.HistoryLand for the park was donated to the City of Calgary in 1911 by John Hextall, as part of a deal to secure the extension of streetcar service into Bowness Estates, which he was developing as an exclusive suburb. The land consisted of two islands in the Bow River, separated from the south bank by a narrow channel, now dammed off to create a lagoon and small canal.Although hardly any development took place in Bowness before the end of the second world war, Bowness Park itself was extremely popular, thanks in part to the streetcar service which took Calgarians right to the door at a time when automobiles were rare. In the 20's and 30's service on summer weekends was every 15 minutes and it was estimated that on a fine weekend up to 25,000 people would visit the park, with 28 streetcars being assigned to handle the traffic. Streetcar service was maintained from 1913 through 1950.