Queen Elizabeth Outdoor Pool, first of its kind in western Canada, celebrates 100 years

One hundred years ago, on what had been the hottest day in 20 years in Edmonton, the first outdoor municipal swimming pool in western Canada opened. 

Queen Elizabeth Outdoor Pool's Aug. 2 birthday was celebrated Monday by the community, some of the many volunteers who've kept the facility alive over a century, and city officials. 

"To have all of the people here, to have a bright sunny day, and the pool full, we're doing good," John Stobbe, president of the Friends of the Queen Elizabeth Pool Society, told CTV News Edmonton. 

In addition to speeches and a plaque presentation by Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, the group revealed a mural at the entrance of the facility which takes visitors through the pool's 100 years. 

Queen Elizabeth Outdoor Pool exemplifies how infrastructure reflects the evolution of its surrounding community, Stobbe said. 

"I think you need to know your past to move forward and this mural does a really decent story of telling the history of the pool. Like, at one point, people of mixed race were not allowed… Men didn't get to go topless until the 30s."

1922 OPENING 

Originally named South Side Pool, the facility was built for $18,600 on what is now the Indigenous Art Park ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ in Queen Elizabeth Park in Edmonton's North Saskatchewan River valley. 

The design of the 35x105 foot pool, which used reinforced concrete to withstand frost heaving and had a nine-foot concave deep end, was considered innovative at the time. 

Western Canada's first municipal outdoor pool was opened on Aug. 2, 1922, in what is now the Indigenous Art Park ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ in Queen Elizabeth Park in Edmonton's North Saskatchewan River valley. It was originally named South Side Pool, and later renamed Queen Elizabeth Outdoor Pool. (Source: Friends of the Queen Elizabeth Pool Society)

On opening day, the pool hosted a number of competitions, from men swimming lengths in their street clothes, to girls blowing up balloons while swimming, according to a history put together by the Friends of the Queen Elizabeth Pool Society. 

"It is delightfully situated in what is generally recognized as the city's most beautiful park…. The bath looked very inviting for the deep green of the water gave back reflections of the surrounding trees and conjured up images of sweet water nymphs disporting in forest recesses," the Edmonton Bulletin reported of opening day. 

Stobbe recalled, "Recreation in Edmonton is important, and this was an important place for lots of young families."

MOMENTS OF DISCRIMINATION

However, in the beginning, residents of colour were excluded by a 1923 municipal order that restricted swimming to white people only. 

P.S. Poston, a mother of a Black boy, and a group of advocates successfully protested and saw the order rescinded the next year – a first for city pools across Canada, Stobbe's group says. 

The pool was also the setting for a number of pivotal societal changes: In the 30s, as fashion trends changed, Edmonton continued to ban bare-chested male swimmers. Five years before the South Side Pool would become the first in the country to permit topless boys and men, three Edmonton men were arrested for only wearing trunks in 1932. 

The city also prevented women from becoming lifeguards. The first female lifeguards at Queen Elizabeth Outdoor Pool were hired in 1968. 

And more recently, in 2009, a rebuild of the pool featuring gender-neutral change spaces was threatened by community backlash. 

• City council supports co-ed pool change room
• Co-Ed change rooms to stay for new pool

"It's all silly now, but do you remember the little controversy about when we opened this pool, about gender neutral changing rooms?" a chuckling Sohi, who was a city councillor in 2009, asked the crowd on Monday. 

"In hindsight, it seems like: Why?" 

REBUILDS, MORE CELEBRATIONS 

That history and more is showcased on the mural, which pays homage to one of the pool's first pool masters, Jim Crockett, who moved his family each year to live near the pool during its open season. 

It also references Queen Elizabeth's 1939 visit, which inspired the renaming of the pool and its home park, as well as the pool's rebuilds in 1951 and 2011, and the Smith family, who would see seven children compete in swimming at national and international levels. 

• High costs delay approval of new public pool
• Back to the drawing board for pool: city council

"I want to thank the volunteers who had the vision and who had the motivation and the desire to continue to push the city to make a commitment – and I'm glad that we made that commitment – and also working with the province and the federal government to leverage their resources," Sohi said. 

"This… would not have been possible if volunteers like you were not putting hours and hours of time to meet with city council, meet with mayor, and to work with city administration on this." 

The Friends of the Queen Elizabeth Pool Society was formed in 1991, when the pool's closure seemed more imminent than 2004. 

Borden Park Pool and Oliver Pool were the next pools to open in Edmonton in 1924. 

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Sean McClune