| Ken Miklos, President of the Friends of Elliston Park Society, stands in front of a restored windmill, one of the park’s most recognizable features
Deep in the city's southeast, near a landfill and an abandoned drive-in movie theatre, sits a huge and largely unknown city park that may soon be taking on a new life.
Elliston Park will play host to part of the first annual Global Fest in late August. The event features a multicultural celebration at a number of venues throughout east Calgary as well as an international fireworks competition that promises to bring thousands of revellers to the park – a green space that is known to relatively few people outside of the region.
"A lot of people I talk to say, 'Where is Elliston Park?'" says Global Fest's Daniela Lindner, laughing. "Of course, they live in the northwest or the south and places like that.... Most people around here certainly know about it."
The park itself has a unique and interesting history, and Global Fest promises to add a new – and high-profile – phase that has most stakeholders feeling optimistic, if only cautiously so.
The land has been owned by the city since the 1960s, according to Global Fest organizers, but was farmed until the late ’70s. In 1978, a 20-hectare lake was dug into the land as a stormwater collector, and today the lake remains the second largest in the city after the Glenmore Reservoir (neither of which accommodate swimmers).
Plans to turn the area into a park stretch back decades, mostly pursued by the Miklos family, who have farming connections to the land stretching back generations (Elliston Park takes its name from a Miklos predecessor, Shepard Ellis, an early settler in the region). Finally, in 1994, after extensive landscaping, the park was opened to the public. There are plans to gradually increase the size of the park until it reaches 410 acres by reclaiming space from a nearby landfill, which would make it the second largest in the city after Nose Hill.
Today, the park is a sprawling, young green space – paths wind around one of the few publicly accessible lakes in the city; young trees dot the landscape (the park hosts the city's first birthplace forest, a program that plants trees for every registered child born in the city); and there are extensive playgrounds and landscaped areas.
But it is also one of the few green beacons in the region. It borders one of the most economically depressed areas of the city, sits within walking distance (but not eyeshot) of a garbage dump, and is neighbours with the burned-out Corral 4 drive-in movie theatre, which was abandoned after the nearby Hub Oil disaster in 1999 and has simply grown more derelict with time.
Those factors, however, make those with a stake in the park treasure its existence – perhaps more than that of other public green spaces in the city.
Ken Miklos, who continues to help maintain the park through Friends of Elliston Park, an organization his family founded, says the park is vital to the community because, in an area short of wealth and greenspace, it serves as a public sanctuary.
"In east Calgary, they've got a real shortage of quality greenspaces compared to other areas of the city, " Miklos says. "We've found out here that economics do play a role. Economics do impact some people out here – that's why public recreational opportunities are so important.
"People have really bought into (the park) and taken ownership of it."
With the park playing such an important role in the community, it's not surprising that some worry has been expressed about bringing in up to 10,000 people to the park for four nights in a row and setting off the biggest fireworks displays the city has ever seen.
Miklos says he has a little anxiety about the use of the park for the festival, but has worked closely with organizers and is, in fact, optimistic that the festival will benefit the park. His biggest concern is over the park's closure to the public for the duration of the event, but that has been somewhat mitigated by a pledge by festival organizers to donate half of the gate receipts to future park maintenance.
"As with any event, there are certain unknowns and we have to work with that," Miklos says. "Anytime you get that many people into a relatively confined space, there is the potential for damage, but the (festival organizers) have committed to leave the park in as good, or better, condition…. If anyone can pull that off, they can."
Daryl Hunt, the president of the nearby Forest Lawn Community Association, sees even bigger benefits to the festival. He thinks attracting such a high-profile event and thousands of people will help dispel the neighbourhood's rough-and-tumble reputation.
"Anything that can bring something spectacular to the community can only be good in the long run," Hunt says.
Festival organizers seem to have keyed in to the public anxiety over their use of the park and are offering plenty of reassurances.
Lindner says organizers have pledged to make the fireworks festival as safe as possible and to ensure the park's stability. They looked for years to find a suitable location for a fireworks festival (water is essential to the visual effect, she explains), and, with the endorsement of a number of local community associations, they plan to run as smooth a festival as possible.
"It's a perfect location," Lindner says. "We've really tried to engage everybody in the community we could.
"It's a great boon for the park. I'm sure everyone will know about it soon." |
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