Queen Elizabeth Outdoor Pool in Edmonton, Alberta, celebrated its centenary with an inauguration of a mural reflecting the changes the community went through over a century.
Considered a novelty for its time, in 1922 the pool was made from reinforced concrete to combat the impact of frost and featured a 2.7-m (9-ft) deep concave end. Originally called the South Side Pool, it was built for $18,600 on the site of present-day Indigenous Art Park ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ in Queen Elizabeth Park in Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River valley.
The mural pays tribute to one of the pool’s first pool masters, Jim Crockett, who would relocate his family every year to live close to the pool during summertime when it was open. It also points out Queen Elizabeth’s 1939 visit, which inspired the pool’s renaming as well as its 1951 and 2011 rebuilds.
According to CTV, John Stobbe, president of the Friends of the Queen Elizabeth Pool Society, which was formed to prevent pool’s closure in 1991, said, “Queen Elizabeth Outdoor Pool exemplifies how infrastructure reflects the evolution of its surrounding community.”
“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,” he added. “Like, at one point, people of mixed race were not allowed… Men didn’t get to go topless until the 30s.”
The pool history was also mired with controversy and remains as such in contemporary times. In the 1930s, when the scope of swimwear had become more broadened, the city still prohibited male swimmers to go bare-torsoed into the pool. The year 1932 even saw an arrest made for three men who chose to take a dip with just trunks on. Edmonton also did not allow women to become lifeguards for many years, and the first female lifeguard at the pool were employed in the year 1968. In 2009, gender-neutral change spaces considered in a rebuild of the pool were scorned by the community.
