Northeast River Valley Park, Edmonton

In late October, I drove out to the new Northeast River Valley Park in Edmonton. The park was formerly a children's camp and still in the process of being developed, but opened in late September. It offers the largest paddling pond in the city.

Signage is still in development so I put a map above. The best parking is by the event centre (purple). You then hike about 600 feet to the launch (green). It is a good hike on a gravelled roadway/path.

The launch looks set to include a dock (it was not present the day I was there). The beach launch is a bit DIY but wasn't too bad.

The pathway down is steep and the last drop to the lake is also steep (if that matters to you). I managed to get in and out dry footed. 

The lake is basically a big north-south pond (maybe twice the size of Hawrelak pond), divided by an island into two basins. There is also a channel on the NE corner that loops around the island that the launch is on.

There is an active beaver lodge in the NE corner of the channel and I saw a couple of muskrats and some ducks.

Otherwise, it was pretty quiet this late in the season. The water is about 15 to 20 feet below the surrounding land so there is some protection from the wind. This is important because there are (so far) few trees in the park and it is a bit windswept--very much like a southern Alberta prairie.

It was a beautiful day when I was out. Sunny and +22C was amazing for late October. It took me about 30 minutes to paddle the whole perimeter at a moderate pace. A second lap made a nice hour of paddling.

The event centre is very pretty and sits atop the hill. Two covered bridged connect an island with a playground on it to the shore. You can easily get under all of the bridges.

Different bridges mark the entrances to the channel. Again, there is lots of headroom.

Overall, this was a nice paddle and would be a good place for a shakedown cruise in the spring or for first timers. It is a long way northeast (I could have gotten to several bigger lakes west of town in the same travel time) so I don't think I'll be a regular.