Riverfront Park
Published Saturday November 22nd, 2008
Moncton's link to things that matter
By Brent Mazerolle
Times & Transcript Staff
While thousands of people visit at least some part of it each week, it still sometimes seems as if Moncton's Riverfront Park is the forgotten green space in the city.
That may be because of its unusual shape. It is more than five kilometres long, but in a couple spots only 30 or 40 metres wide. Or it may because it lacks an obvious main entrance.
When you pull off St. George Boulevard to enter Centennial Park, there's no mistaking that fact. With the Riverfront Park, there are dozens of possible places where you might slip from the ruck of an urban streetscape and suddenly find yourself in a world where nature sets the rhythm.
And nature here has a particular rhythm like few other places on earth, thanks to a river that flows both ways.
The Petitcodiac River, with its tidal bore and distinctive chocolate brown waters, is of course the star attraction of Riverfront Park, though some would argue the park's real attraction is the walking and running trails it offers in the heart of downtown.
That it boasts twin appeals is not so surprising. The Riverfront Park at its base is about the links it offers between things that matter.
It connects the city with the river it had once turned its back on, linking Moncton's business centre with the lands where the community had its shipbuilding beginnings. It links the city's east and west ends and it will one day be linked to all of Moncton's other neighbourhoods through the Millennium Trail network. It links Moncton's riverfront with the riverfront trails of its neighbouring communities of Dieppe and Riverview and in the much larger scale, it links Moncton with the rest of the nation, as it is part of the Trans Canada Trail.
Not that the pheasants care about any of that. Nevertheless, there may be no one who enjoys Riverfront Park as much as the pheasants who have made it their home in numbers that have absolutely surged since the park started in 1995. Where once there were shipyards and wharves, marsh grass has returned, and with it the beautiful ring-tails who are the frequent surprise delights of most journeys along the trail. Roused from the grass by your approaching footsteps, the pheasants will take to the air and your heart will soar with them at the beautiful sight. That's of course assuming your heart hasn't been stopped by the surprise.
"They're everywhere down there!" Colin James raved as he recalled a morning jog to an audience at the Capitol Theatre last year. The internationally renowned Vancouver-based musician spends hundreds of days a year on the road in cities around the world. And what stood out in his mind about Moncton was running the Riverfront Trail in the morning with the sun rising over the bend in the river that gave the city its first name and watching nine pheasants (he kept count) take flight at different spots along his route. Their breathtaking beauty was apparently colourful enough to banish the blues even of a devoted bluesman.
James also told his audience how lucky they were to have such a lengthy, uncrowded trail so handy to everything and how the waving marsh grasses are beautiful and the muddy river is "really cool."
Well said, Mr. James.
New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham would agree. When Graham, who ran track as a student, hosted Canada's premiers in 2007, he started the first full day of meetings by taking a few of Canada's hardier first ministers for a pre-dawn jog in the fog.
The park is indeed a paradise for those looking to get out and get moving. Twinned tailings offer both paved paths, ideal for wheelchairs, bicycles, and in-line skates, and a softer dirt surface for walkers and runners.
And because the river valley is so flat, there are no steep slopes to dissuade those who aren't quite as ultra-fit as the great migratory herds of joggers who set out from The Running Room and take to the trail at just about any time of the day, just about any day of the year. As of last year, portions of the trail are now cleared for winter running.
The park also represents a wonderful reclamation of once under-used former industrial lands, not to mention the way its western end has helped redeem the former regional landfill site. But Riverfront Park is not just about getting a bit of nature in the heart of the city.
It has increasingly become a community gathering place. Long the band of public space that gives thousands of people a vantage point to watch the annual Canada Day fireworks, Riverfront Park also provided the perfect venue for two free air shows over the Petitcodiac River last year.
With its beautiful floral displays, benches, and monuments and
other points of interest along the trail like Bore View Park, Settlers Green, the Skateboard Park, Hal Betts Commemorative Sportsplex, and the Treitz Haus, Riverfront Park can also just be a place to go sit and relax or to go play or to go learn about the community that built it.
Rod Higgins, assistant general manager of the City of Moncton's Recreation, Parks, Tourism and Culture department, sees Riverfront Park becoming more of a gathering place in the future.
"We think it's one of the most important creative and cultural zones within the city," Higgins said. "We want to enhance that."
Saying it can be a catalyst for linking the downtown business life with park life, Higgins said the city wants to add some more boardwalk over a marshy part to the east of Bore Park, adjacent to the boardwalk that now stretches from The Running Room to Chateau Moncton at Halls Creek. The city would also like to see that section become a place where sidewalk vendors can ply their trade and people can come to mingle the way they do at the Moncton Market.
Also in the works is the creation of one of the city's event zones, where things like stages and bleachers and trash cans can be quickly deployed for the holding of community events.
Riverfront Park has, since its inception in the mid-1990s, played a key role in Moncton's citizens rediscovering the river that gave birth to their community. With each passing year, interest in the park and the numbers of people using it have grown substantially. With restoration of the Petitcodiac River now begun and development downtown finally headed toward the riverfront again, the value of Riverfront Park seems destined to become something everyone can one day appreciate.
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...rough news about GM though, I knew they were in bad shape but I didnt think it was THAT bad.
. You could sell chocolate milk for 5$ a bottle if you call it 'Petitcodiac Punch'.
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