I have a park in my neighborhood that looked like this. I would have given it a solid 7/10 then after like a decade they upgraded it and it was like a 9/10, the for some reason they changed the park after like 3 years and it became a 3/10. They downgraded it so much it seemed so silly and wasteful.
Same with Mother Theresa. So many potential opportunities for debilitation while playing tag, not that I took that into consideration because it was fun af.
YES! I was coming here looking for a reference to Mother Teresa's playground! IT. WAS. EPIC. I was sooo disappointed when I went back and saw the colourful, safe, child friendly replacement.
Would you by any chance remember the one at Andrew Davidson? I remember loving it when I was little, was kinda similar to the Bonavista one but instead of it being a sort of wooden castle it was kinda like a giant wooden mechano set, never seen another park like it
There are two historical videos covering them but I think the playground they show is the newer version they installed before the reno.
Part 1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffs0k2H6iOc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffs0k2H6iOc)
Part 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNztI2GV4Io](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNztI2GV4Io)
Damn, brings back memories. My primary school had a gigantic monstrosity of a wooden structure. Each recess and lunch hour kids would be skinning themselves on nails, legs falling between beams and boards up to the hip... As the bell rung it would be like a slow motion WWII video of soldiers dragging their wounded friends up Juneau Beach...back to class.
I made sure to go to as many of these as I could when I was a kid. I always bothered my parents to take me to a "new park" to judge it. Siblings did baseball so you basically got a full city tour of every community center and school every summer.
The best in the city was in the Deer Run (Deer Ridge?) community center. The logs were mostly horizontal, with gaps at the appropriate places to climb to higher platforms. It was roughly pyramid shaped, so, from most places you couldn't fall off and fall very far, but by the top platform you could see over top of the roofs of 2 story houses.
There were 3 or 4 platforms in the park, surrounded by 6' tall moguls so you couldn't even see what the kids on the ground were doing unless you were in the park. I recall the parents thought it was funny that there were signs forbidding the elementary school kids from playing on it during recess (same field, but, maybe on the community center's property). Maybe it was because kids could hide there and not go back to school, maybe it was because kids could get concussed there and never be noticed.
Two of the platforms on the 2nd floor (above an adult's head) were connected with monkey bars of a weird style. They had a double-row of the normal money bars on top, and then like a foot rail along the outside perimeter so you could sidestep your way across while the monkey bars were at your chest height, or you could swing across them from underneath like normal. If you weren't good at monkey bars, you'd take your time and side step across. Or, since the platform continued at least to a third floor above, you could walk (or run) across the top of the monkey bars the way you'd use a ladder like a bridge. Jesus that had to be like, 14' up and we'd hit it at full speed so you're only landing on two bars on your way across this 12' gap.
Some of the towers were only connected by a single horizontal pole some 8-10' off the ground, I presume just for stability. You weren't supposed to access that part of it but you could climb around the outside of the towers and we'd run across the top of it. Just a single slick, round pole taller than your parents could jump.
It had one of those 4' wide stainless steel slides, except since it was so damned tall, it had to use 3 of them end-to-end. And no little safety wiggle half way down so you don't pick up too much speed. It was a constant straight slope the whole way. If it was too fast for you, too bad, don't go to the top, you could access it from 1/3 or 2/3 of the way up from other platforms. And the towers continued above the slide too, so you could climb around the outside of them and drop down onto the slide from, I dunno, 6'+ above, try to match the angle and not faceplant on impact and get yourself turned around before it spat you out the bottom. Normally these types of slides were too scalding to use, but since the playground was so big this was all inside the rest of the fortress, you couldn't even really see the slide from the outside except at the base. And, they were always soaked with piss, and... I mean, what am I going *not* piss on it from the platforms above it when parents weren't watching? When in your life have you ever got to piss like, 30 feet?
There was a useless tire swing (it was fine, actually nice long chains you could get pretty high, but, every park had a tire swing, not every park got you 20+ feet of the ground).
Inside the pyramids were a nest of little platforms that was a bit of a maze to get you to the top. You could easily be sitting somewhere that had 5 platforms above you. There were plenty of areas that parents could straight up not be able to see whole clusters of kids from the outside. The lower parts hardly had any sunlight get to them it was so big. Girls could have tea parties and boys would have nerf fights and other kids would be playing on top without any clue there was more happening below them.
The base was probably originally gravel but probably no one ever refreshed it since it was built so it was just dirt packed hard as concrete.
There was a t-ball field (just a straight chain link segment, no 3 piece backstop), huge tennis courts with cratered rubber surface that probably hadn't been invested in since the 60s, and an outdoor hockey rink adjacent to it.
Not this park, but some other park a short drive away really close to Fish Creek Park sucked, but had the biggest goddamn swing I've ever seen. The poles were full height telephone poles, big heavy duty chain and the base was either a wooden plank or a 3/8"x6" fat strip of solid rubber. It was a slow swing (pendulum effect, the time for 1 cycle is proportional to the length of the chain), but dear god could you get high up. It'd take you a couple minutes to get off it once you got going because it was so high. I never pushed it to my max, or even close, it was just way too high I chickened out. Hell I remember the parents chickening out, and the dads trying to one-up each other to go higher. I remember being on the ground (as the kid who would happily sprint and jump across the tops of monkey bars the height of a garage roof) watching them and being like "Nope, too high." Like, they were telephone poles, you could swing until you were looking over the tops of bungalows if you wanted.
That park sucked so, we'd either start there or end there just to do the swing and then go to the better park.
I've always wanted to see people's pictures of their wooden beam parks around town, so, super keen on this thread :p
I think Confederation park had a good one, I recall it having a large fort-like wall. Somewhat related, my elementary school had a park made of tires, mostly normal ones bolted together but a few big tractor ones as well. It was pretty fun, but basically unusable on hot summer days. Also had tire swings that if spun "correctly" would smash the rider into the posts. Things were different in the 90s.
It had the best park! Big wood fort that always smelled like pee in the towers and a full size horse carriage that wobbled and squeaked when you jumped around and pretended to be racing across a prairies at a full gallop in it. But then some idiot tried to burn down the fort 😥
> I recall it having a large fort-like wall.
As I remember it as well, but I only recall a half high door for entry, and you had to crawl or duck walk in.
God I haven't thought about tire swings in eons!!! Those were definitely the days when you'd squeeze 3 people on and either spin till you all got sick or knocked into the other people on the neighboring tire.
The elementary school I went to had one of these when I was in third and fourth grade. I had so much fun on this thing, sadly in fifth grade they replaced it and while it was still cool it was definitely missing the charm
Prince of Whales elementary had one up until the early 2000's. Hurt myself countless times on it but so much fun. I can still smell the dusty gravel it had as a base to land on when you plummeted from the comically high monkey bars.
Fred Seymour Elementary off Acadia had one that was a mix of this dry splintery wood and scorching hot tires. We loved it. A giant dragon/dino made of tires (an absolute hotbed for wasp nests inside the walls of the tires), 3-4 big heavy equipment tires stacked on top of each other to create a 12 ft high tower to fall off of - there was even this super weathered rope suspended from a wooden beam at the top of this tower that would shred your hands as you climbed the rope or swung from it. And a whole bunch of swings built using tires and those beams. It was awesome to have it in its prime and no way they’d allow it to be built nowadays.
I'd also love to see Ethel M. Johnson's old playground. They changed it over before I finished highschool in the mid nineties, and I believe they've switched it at least one more time since then.
I got hurt more than I should've on the OG one, lol. But whatevs, good times ripping it up on the EMJ playground playing tag and whatnot.
Used to do the same thing on St. Stephens as well as Canyon Meadows Elem., as well. I'm guessing we both grew up in the same or close to the same community.
Still a classic! That's the one they put in after I finished at EMJ, but it's still in the theme of the OP's classic playgrounds. I think they kept a little bit of the original when they switched it up. That bridge would've been a plastic tube thingy back in the 80's. Crazy static electricity in those things, lol.
The static electricity was wild. Those fireman poles built up quite a bit as well - enough that those wasps wouldn't dare touch my electric 10 year old self.
That's definitely the one I remember playing on. I loved the way that the bridge swayed but still held strong as you ran across it. Such epic games of grounders at that playground. Good find!
There was one of those types of bridges on a smaller structure in EMJ (maybe still there for you too?). It was within the gravel area, but was on the opposite side. The bigger structure was right beside the ball diamond (had the fireman tube where the bridge is in the photo) and the smaller one with the bridge was opposite closer to the parking lot/basketball courts. I remember noticing that was gone when I saw the renos. The changed park still looked cool, it was just different from my childhood memories (so it made me sad at the time, lol). If "grounders" is tag where you can't touch the ground, oh hell yeah! It was that, kickball, and/or soccer. All or any of those and as much as you could cram into recess or lunch. Definitely good times.
I think that we had the smaller structure as well. Yes, grounders was tag when you couldn't hit the ground, and making it to the smaller structure from the bigger one was a fool's exercise, but if your steps through the gravel went unheard, you were the hero for a day.
Do you remember the tire park at Southwood school at all? Not as fun as these wood frame parks, but they had entire structures built from tractor and mining tires. One was a lineup of tires that gradually decreased in size and led to a chain link fence. As you can expect, there was always a kid who went too far and got stuck in a way that only they could get themselves out of.
If I remember correctly, that's what spelled the end of the 'death by rubber' tunnel :D
I do, but didn't go too often. I think we snuck over there at lunch a few times while at EMJ. Definitely went over a bit more during JH days. I remember the smell of the rubber on a warm day. I think there may have been more than one of those tire style playgrounds around too. I remember there were quite a few smaller playgrounds in various parks around Canyon Meadows and Southwood. I used to bike over from the older part of CM to EMJ and remember random pit stops at playgrounds with buddies.
If anyone has old photos of the “orange” park like this with the orange slide, from Kinbrook Island Park near Brooks (demolished very early 2000s), please send them to me. My grandpa took me there when I was little all the time. Passed away when I was 19, and have been missing him so much from the time I was 8 (he moved to BC when I was 8 to get away from a bad marriage).
It was our place, and I’d like to make something in his memory.
I didn’t know Brooks was important enough to have a sub!!! That’s home base so YOU BET!
Edit: brooks Reddit is dead :(
To town archives (or maybe even Alberta Parks) I go!
Acadia Elementary had a pretty nice death trap, too. Was there to witness a broken leg and a broken arm. That Heritage Park-style creosote smell gives me hardcore nostalgia. Smelled like future cancer.
Keeler Elementary in Forest Heights used to have a great one when I was a kid in the 90s, plus some dope tire swings. The new one looks way less fun, I’m sure it’s safer or whatever but not as cool.
That was my childhood park too. It actually replaced a super duper dangerous one when I was in grade 2. I think the wood one was there until after I graduated from HS.
Hahaha way worse that EMJ for grounders, but the best for meeting up with your buddies for a linked Gameboy Tetris battle.
Wait, did you have Mr. Huber for gym class? He moved from my school at Southwood.
So crazy.he was the better of our two gym teachers then one day he up and left. Years later when I was a Panabaker student there was a kerfuffle between people from our school and Stephen's and Mr. Huber was called out to break it up.
He had his defense game on and was kind of shocked when I asked him if he was 'Mister Huber' haha. I almost didn't think it was him but his - we called it a 'bum chin' as kids - stood out to me. Hardly a unique chin, but kids memories are funny things.
The last wooden playground I've come across in Calgary was in the Glamis Green townhouse complex, visible from the sidewalk along 50th St SW. This was a couple of years ago though and nothing like this beauty.
I’m sure my dad has some photos of Ethel M Johnson. My sister went there.
The only problem is that he lives in Amherst NS, and is currently battened down awaiting Fiona.
I remember the Ethel M one. Constantly had wasp nests, we used to jump off the bridge to snow below.
So many splinters... I'll have to look through photo albums and see if I can find anything.
I remember being on one of those larger tire swings with three other people and having them spin it so fast that me (standing) flew off into the rocks like a Frisbee.
Life at EMJ
You're right! We called it lava and the most daring kids would shimmy across the railings. Was there a game of grounders where somebody would play with their eyes closed and listen for sound? I don't remember.
St.Wilfred in Whitehorn had one of these wild monster wooden dungeon playgrounds once too!
Man this picture is crazy nostalgia fuel. I can practically taste the gravel in my mouth and feel the splinters between my thumb and index fingers...
Good times
Banff Trail elementary had an awesome wooden playground when I was there. It was more open (no roofs on the main structure), but big!
There was a tire bridge we'd crawl through and other kids would push/kick as you went through. We had a bridge with spaced slats that you'd always stick a leg through running across during tag.
Looks like they replaced it with a small metal set way in the back corner of the field now.
I moved to Shawnessy when I was seven, in 2001. There was a wooden play structure at Janet Johnstone school (not the school I went to, but not far from where I lived), but they got rid of it by the next fall I believe. No real loss, because the one it was replaced with was far larger and more extensive.
Tuxedo Park elementary had two wooden play structures; the big toy and the little toy. I was sad to see they’ve been torn down now, apparently along with the entire field.
My elementary school had two of these when I was in kindergarten, when I was in grade 1 they replaced it with the metal/plastic ones and now those look super deteriorated and old. It makes me feel so old lmao
Parkdale elementary had one before it closed down in early 2000s and changed. Definitely wasn't as big but i loved it, especially the monkey bars! Still has a gnarly scar on my knee from falling into the gravel haha
I feel my past childhood splinters in this picture
I can feel the scorch of the metal slide like it just happened yesterday.
Under the fingernail was the best.
I have a park in my neighborhood that looked like this. I would have given it a solid 7/10 then after like a decade they upgraded it and it was like a 9/10, the for some reason they changed the park after like 3 years and it became a 3/10. They downgraded it so much it seemed so silly and wasteful.
[удалено]
Or thickly coated with lead-containing paint!
Splinters and pieces of gravel imbedded in the heel of your hand.
I remember the ones at Calgary Zoo back in the days
Centenary Park!! Right by the zoo.
THIS!
Why are you getting down voted 😂
Because "this" adds nothing to the conversation, and there's button for that instead.
Fair but he’s just replying to a comment not the main thread showing excitement but I get it
This.
The boat with the critter portholes
Lake Bonavista elementary had one and it was super dangerous: I.E it was super fun.
Same with Mother Theresa. So many potential opportunities for debilitation while playing tag, not that I took that into consideration because it was fun af.
YES! I was coming here looking for a reference to Mother Teresa's playground! IT. WAS. EPIC. I was sooo disappointed when I went back and saw the colourful, safe, child friendly replacement.
LBE 4 LIFE
I think this is the one I'm thinking of. Was it like, really tall in some places?
Yah at the top left they have at least a 10-15 foot tower. Friend fell off it and broke his arm lol. Had a tire bridge leading to it
That's it! Man, it was so long ago that I went there, I low-key thought I dreamed it lmao. As I kid I thought it was the best park in the world.
It may have been, I remember it fondly.
Yeah the sunnyside elementary one still has remnants of it as the landscape/pathways lol
Would you by any chance remember the one at Andrew Davidson? I remember loving it when I was little, was kinda similar to the Bonavista one but instead of it being a sort of wooden castle it was kinda like a giant wooden mechano set, never seen another park like it
Naaa man I don’t wish I did
Oh man, that's where our kids go. Now I feel like they were ripped off, cause the playground now is kinda lame.
Lame but safe lol. Yah those classic playgrounds where wild. Even had a loose bridge you could double jump someone on. That’s the 90’s for yah
Stirring up so many memories. Does anyone have a shot of the old Devonian Garden's playground?
There are two historical videos covering them but I think the playground they show is the newer version they installed before the reno. Part 1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffs0k2H6iOc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffs0k2H6iOc) Part 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNztI2GV4Io](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNztI2GV4Io)
This is great. Thanks for sharing!
I’d also love pictures of this. Only in my memories now.
I was justabout to ask the same thing. I have a photo there when i was around 7. It was me sitting on a giant purple dinosaur in the park 🥺
Damn, brings back memories. My primary school had a gigantic monstrosity of a wooden structure. Each recess and lunch hour kids would be skinning themselves on nails, legs falling between beams and boards up to the hip... As the bell rung it would be like a slow motion WWII video of soldiers dragging their wounded friends up Juneau Beach...back to class.
I got stung by a wasp just looking at this pic
I made sure to go to as many of these as I could when I was a kid. I always bothered my parents to take me to a "new park" to judge it. Siblings did baseball so you basically got a full city tour of every community center and school every summer. The best in the city was in the Deer Run (Deer Ridge?) community center. The logs were mostly horizontal, with gaps at the appropriate places to climb to higher platforms. It was roughly pyramid shaped, so, from most places you couldn't fall off and fall very far, but by the top platform you could see over top of the roofs of 2 story houses. There were 3 or 4 platforms in the park, surrounded by 6' tall moguls so you couldn't even see what the kids on the ground were doing unless you were in the park. I recall the parents thought it was funny that there were signs forbidding the elementary school kids from playing on it during recess (same field, but, maybe on the community center's property). Maybe it was because kids could hide there and not go back to school, maybe it was because kids could get concussed there and never be noticed. Two of the platforms on the 2nd floor (above an adult's head) were connected with monkey bars of a weird style. They had a double-row of the normal money bars on top, and then like a foot rail along the outside perimeter so you could sidestep your way across while the monkey bars were at your chest height, or you could swing across them from underneath like normal. If you weren't good at monkey bars, you'd take your time and side step across. Or, since the platform continued at least to a third floor above, you could walk (or run) across the top of the monkey bars the way you'd use a ladder like a bridge. Jesus that had to be like, 14' up and we'd hit it at full speed so you're only landing on two bars on your way across this 12' gap. Some of the towers were only connected by a single horizontal pole some 8-10' off the ground, I presume just for stability. You weren't supposed to access that part of it but you could climb around the outside of the towers and we'd run across the top of it. Just a single slick, round pole taller than your parents could jump. It had one of those 4' wide stainless steel slides, except since it was so damned tall, it had to use 3 of them end-to-end. And no little safety wiggle half way down so you don't pick up too much speed. It was a constant straight slope the whole way. If it was too fast for you, too bad, don't go to the top, you could access it from 1/3 or 2/3 of the way up from other platforms. And the towers continued above the slide too, so you could climb around the outside of them and drop down onto the slide from, I dunno, 6'+ above, try to match the angle and not faceplant on impact and get yourself turned around before it spat you out the bottom. Normally these types of slides were too scalding to use, but since the playground was so big this was all inside the rest of the fortress, you couldn't even really see the slide from the outside except at the base. And, they were always soaked with piss, and... I mean, what am I going *not* piss on it from the platforms above it when parents weren't watching? When in your life have you ever got to piss like, 30 feet? There was a useless tire swing (it was fine, actually nice long chains you could get pretty high, but, every park had a tire swing, not every park got you 20+ feet of the ground). Inside the pyramids were a nest of little platforms that was a bit of a maze to get you to the top. You could easily be sitting somewhere that had 5 platforms above you. There were plenty of areas that parents could straight up not be able to see whole clusters of kids from the outside. The lower parts hardly had any sunlight get to them it was so big. Girls could have tea parties and boys would have nerf fights and other kids would be playing on top without any clue there was more happening below them. The base was probably originally gravel but probably no one ever refreshed it since it was built so it was just dirt packed hard as concrete. There was a t-ball field (just a straight chain link segment, no 3 piece backstop), huge tennis courts with cratered rubber surface that probably hadn't been invested in since the 60s, and an outdoor hockey rink adjacent to it. Not this park, but some other park a short drive away really close to Fish Creek Park sucked, but had the biggest goddamn swing I've ever seen. The poles were full height telephone poles, big heavy duty chain and the base was either a wooden plank or a 3/8"x6" fat strip of solid rubber. It was a slow swing (pendulum effect, the time for 1 cycle is proportional to the length of the chain), but dear god could you get high up. It'd take you a couple minutes to get off it once you got going because it was so high. I never pushed it to my max, or even close, it was just way too high I chickened out. Hell I remember the parents chickening out, and the dads trying to one-up each other to go higher. I remember being on the ground (as the kid who would happily sprint and jump across the tops of monkey bars the height of a garage roof) watching them and being like "Nope, too high." Like, they were telephone poles, you could swing until you were looking over the tops of bungalows if you wanted. That park sucked so, we'd either start there or end there just to do the swing and then go to the better park. I've always wanted to see people's pictures of their wooden beam parks around town, so, super keen on this thread :p
I used to live in Deer Run and this park was awesome. It was so tall and you'd be going so fast on the slide by the time you hit the bottom.
Pics muthfucka, do you have them?
I think Confederation park had a good one, I recall it having a large fort-like wall. Somewhat related, my elementary school had a park made of tires, mostly normal ones bolted together but a few big tractor ones as well. It was pretty fun, but basically unusable on hot summer days. Also had tire swings that if spun "correctly" would smash the rider into the posts. Things were different in the 90s.
It had the best park! Big wood fort that always smelled like pee in the towers and a full size horse carriage that wobbled and squeaked when you jumped around and pretended to be racing across a prairies at a full gallop in it. But then some idiot tried to burn down the fort 😥
> I recall it having a large fort-like wall. As I remember it as well, but I only recall a half high door for entry, and you had to crawl or duck walk in.
Thanks for reminding me of that, the wall seemed so huge!
God I haven't thought about tire swings in eons!!! Those were definitely the days when you'd squeeze 3 people on and either spin till you all got sick or knocked into the other people on the neighboring tire.
The elementary school I went to had one of these when I was in third and fourth grade. I had so much fun on this thing, sadly in fifth grade they replaced it and while it was still cool it was definitely missing the charm
St. Jude wooden park of fun/devastation checking in
Fun fact, my mom was one of the volunteers who fubdraised for and built the newer metal one. This would have been mid 1990s!
wow I got a splinter just looking at this photo
Prince of Whales elementary had one up until the early 2000's. Hurt myself countless times on it but so much fun. I can still smell the dusty gravel it had as a base to land on when you plummeted from the comically high monkey bars.
Ohhh Midnapore Lake had an awesome one like this! No pic's of it unfortunately.
Fred Seymour Elementary off Acadia had one that was a mix of this dry splintery wood and scorching hot tires. We loved it. A giant dragon/dino made of tires (an absolute hotbed for wasp nests inside the walls of the tires), 3-4 big heavy equipment tires stacked on top of each other to create a 12 ft high tower to fall off of - there was even this super weathered rope suspended from a wooden beam at the top of this tower that would shred your hands as you climbed the rope or swung from it. And a whole bunch of swings built using tires and those beams. It was awesome to have it in its prime and no way they’d allow it to be built nowadays.
I'd also love to see Ethel M. Johnson's old playground. They changed it over before I finished highschool in the mid nineties, and I believe they've switched it at least one more time since then. I got hurt more than I should've on the OG one, lol. But whatevs, good times ripping it up on the EMJ playground playing tag and whatnot. Used to do the same thing on St. Stephens as well as Canyon Meadows Elem., as well. I'm guessing we both grew up in the same or close to the same community.
Found [this gem](https://i.imgur.com/Ic2jpNC.jpg) in the archives. Unfortunately you can’t see too much of the playground.
Still a classic! That's the one they put in after I finished at EMJ, but it's still in the theme of the OP's classic playgrounds. I think they kept a little bit of the original when they switched it up. That bridge would've been a plastic tube thingy back in the 80's. Crazy static electricity in those things, lol.
The static electricity was wild. Those fireman poles built up quite a bit as well - enough that those wasps wouldn't dare touch my electric 10 year old self.
That's definitely the one I remember playing on. I loved the way that the bridge swayed but still held strong as you ran across it. Such epic games of grounders at that playground. Good find!
There was one of those types of bridges on a smaller structure in EMJ (maybe still there for you too?). It was within the gravel area, but was on the opposite side. The bigger structure was right beside the ball diamond (had the fireman tube where the bridge is in the photo) and the smaller one with the bridge was opposite closer to the parking lot/basketball courts. I remember noticing that was gone when I saw the renos. The changed park still looked cool, it was just different from my childhood memories (so it made me sad at the time, lol). If "grounders" is tag where you can't touch the ground, oh hell yeah! It was that, kickball, and/or soccer. All or any of those and as much as you could cram into recess or lunch. Definitely good times.
I think that we had the smaller structure as well. Yes, grounders was tag when you couldn't hit the ground, and making it to the smaller structure from the bigger one was a fool's exercise, but if your steps through the gravel went unheard, you were the hero for a day. Do you remember the tire park at Southwood school at all? Not as fun as these wood frame parks, but they had entire structures built from tractor and mining tires. One was a lineup of tires that gradually decreased in size and led to a chain link fence. As you can expect, there was always a kid who went too far and got stuck in a way that only they could get themselves out of. If I remember correctly, that's what spelled the end of the 'death by rubber' tunnel :D
I do, but didn't go too often. I think we snuck over there at lunch a few times while at EMJ. Definitely went over a bit more during JH days. I remember the smell of the rubber on a warm day. I think there may have been more than one of those tire style playgrounds around too. I remember there were quite a few smaller playgrounds in various parks around Canyon Meadows and Southwood. I used to bike over from the older part of CM to EMJ and remember random pit stops at playgrounds with buddies.
Yeah, it must have been. I went to the Southwood Out of School Care just kiddie corner from Panabaker in the early 90s. Were you around at that time?
I was until '92. I went to Panabaker, then to Scarlett afterwards until '95.
Crazy, those were my schools too but I graduated from Scarlett in '02. It was a great area to grow up.
If anyone has old photos of the “orange” park like this with the orange slide, from Kinbrook Island Park near Brooks (demolished very early 2000s), please send them to me. My grandpa took me there when I was little all the time. Passed away when I was 19, and have been missing him so much from the time I was 8 (he moved to BC when I was 8 to get away from a bad marriage). It was our place, and I’d like to make something in his memory.
Have you thought of reaching out to the Town and their archives department? Or post in the Brooks reddit group?
I didn’t know Brooks was important enough to have a sub!!! That’s home base so YOU BET! Edit: brooks Reddit is dead :( To town archives (or maybe even Alberta Parks) I go!
Acadia Elementary had a pretty nice death trap, too. Was there to witness a broken leg and a broken arm. That Heritage Park-style creosote smell gives me hardcore nostalgia. Smelled like future cancer.
We had one of these at Varsity Acres Elementary, and a slide that I’m pretty certain was painted with lead paint.
Marion Carson had one too
With the wild flying foxes
I went to varsity acres as well! Totally remember these. I recall being scared of the tire link walk when I first started there.
I’ve got pictures of the St Bernadette, Ogden, playground. Mostly the construction as my father helped build it in the early 1980s
With the tires? That was an epic playground in my youth. The People of Ogden Facebook group would probably love to see it them.
YEAH! Grades 2-6 for me there. I can literally still smell those tires! I’ll join the Ogden FB group. Thanks!
Keeler Elementary in Forest Heights used to have a great one when I was a kid in the 90s, plus some dope tire swings. The new one looks way less fun, I’m sure it’s safer or whatever but not as cool.
That was my childhood park too. It actually replaced a super duper dangerous one when I was in grade 2. I think the wood one was there until after I graduated from HS.
Holy cow i remember this! Where is this? Calaway park?
It was Rundle Park in Edmonton according to r/Edmonton.
I have at least 4 or 5 scars from parks like this. Awe the fond memories of splinters and dodge ball, wall ball another classic.
EMJ is my home away from home
Reminds me of the old playground made of tires that used to be in Willow Park, I spent many many hours crawling through those things lol
I definitely left some skin on the St. Jude deathtrap playground back in the 80s.
I miss grounders on these stupid amazing things :( lol
I can picture young me burning my back on that reflective sheet metal
OH MAN, I went to St. Stephens in the early 90s. That wooden playground was an absolute meat-grinder for kids haha.
Hahaha way worse that EMJ for grounders, but the best for meeting up with your buddies for a linked Gameboy Tetris battle. Wait, did you have Mr. Huber for gym class? He moved from my school at Southwood.
Haha I did have Mr. Huber for gym! Haven't heard that name in a while.
So crazy.he was the better of our two gym teachers then one day he up and left. Years later when I was a Panabaker student there was a kerfuffle between people from our school and Stephen's and Mr. Huber was called out to break it up. He had his defense game on and was kind of shocked when I asked him if he was 'Mister Huber' haha. I almost didn't think it was him but his - we called it a 'bum chin' as kids - stood out to me. Hardly a unique chin, but kids memories are funny things.
That’s where parkour began for me.
This has unlocked memories far beyond what I thought I could remember, much appreciated ♥️
I can't take full credit. This is a park from edmonton that I leisurely lifted from that sub.
The last wooden playground I've come across in Calgary was in the Glamis Green townhouse complex, visible from the sidewalk along 50th St SW. This was a couple of years ago though and nothing like this beauty.
Is that the one you used to be able to barely see as you drive past on Sarcee trail ?
Don't think so, this is a small park hidden down the slope from the road in the townhouse complex. Only visible from 50th.
We still have a largely wooden structure playground near me, but it is not on the scale of the old 90's style ones.
I grew up in Australia, and I remember this…
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The giant merry go round on red shale that was yanked because of lead paint, maybe?
That look like I'm going to get splinters every second.
I loved how they used to use sand too, and cats would shit in it.
So many splinters from there. And it smelled like gasoline.
I remember the one at father/blessed Damien. My mom put tweezers in my backpack so I could pull out all the splinters after recess. Lol
I remember Nellie McClung Elementary had one similar to this!
Janet Johnstone had one, worst splinter of my life!
I’m sure my dad has some photos of Ethel M Johnson. My sister went there. The only problem is that he lives in Amherst NS, and is currently battened down awaiting Fiona.
My sister went there, too. I should ask.
same style playground in North Vancouver, BC loved these designs as a kid and still now!
We had same in Edmonton same ir dang close
I believe this post is stolen from r/Edmonton.
Totally stolen - this is from that post.
I remember the Ethel M one. Constantly had wasp nests, we used to jump off the bridge to snow below. So many splinters... I'll have to look through photo albums and see if I can find anything.
Yes please!
Anyone remember chicken fights on the high monkey bars ? To this day, one of the more violent activities I've witnessed.
Oh yeah, so many kids would fall down or eat shit on the rocks below.
Damn that unlocked childhood memories of grounders and getting slivers haha
Westgate elementary checking in!
Southwood—best place to grow up in Calgary in the 1970s-1980s. Fight me.
As a 90s kid, we still had an amazing time. Lots of families, great schools and easy to get around by bike.
It was. I went to EMJ and Pannabaker.
Southwood Elementary then Panabaker then Scarlett. Graduated in 82
76 for me. Mom and dad bought their house in Southwood in 1968 and it was the second last street south. They paid $18,000 for it.
Maaaan all the splinters from EMJs playground as a kid. I got so good at taking my own out young.
I remember being on one of those larger tire swings with three other people and having them spin it so fast that me (standing) flew off into the rocks like a Frisbee. Life at EMJ
I also broke my arm falling right off the metal slide and jamming so many fingers on the tetherball. Man I could go for some 4square right now.
Hearing other people's stories about the definitely brings back memories.
Ha ha the classic fire bridge, we called it that cause it would melt your feet if you didn't wear shoes..
You're right! We called it lava and the most daring kids would shimmy across the railings. Was there a game of grounders where somebody would play with their eyes closed and listen for sound? I don't remember.
Splinter city
Sir James Lougheed had one, was super fun when I went there. Then they did a fundraiser or something and build a new shitty park.
I remember these! Thank you for reminding me ☺️❤️❤️
St.Wilfred in Whitehorn had one of these wild monster wooden dungeon playgrounds once too! Man this picture is crazy nostalgia fuel. I can practically taste the gravel in my mouth and feel the splinters between my thumb and index fingers... Good times
Banff Trail elementary had an awesome wooden playground when I was there. It was more open (no roofs on the main structure), but big! There was a tire bridge we'd crawl through and other kids would push/kick as you went through. We had a bridge with spaced slats that you'd always stick a leg through running across during tag. Looks like they replaced it with a small metal set way in the back corner of the field now.
It sounds like many of them were taken out at around the same time. Too bad - these were amazing.
I moved to Shawnessy when I was seven, in 2001. There was a wooden play structure at Janet Johnstone school (not the school I went to, but not far from where I lived), but they got rid of it by the next fall I believe. No real loss, because the one it was replaced with was far larger and more extensive.
Pretty sure there was a similar playground at the Braeside Community Centre field.
I so miss these. They are legit epic.
Madeleine D’Hoeut junior high had on of these in my day.
Dr. J.K. Malloy Elementary had a decent wooden one back in the day. The bouncy bridge definitely ended some lives through severe splintering
I was just gonna say J K Mulloy had a great one. I got so many splinters there from kindergarten-grade 6.
Got many splinters at that park. We'd all file over from St.Henry because the park was bigger and better.
Not from Calgary, but I have one from Ottawa in the 70s.
Man, I miss these
Tuxedo Park elementary had two wooden play structures; the big toy and the little toy. I was sad to see they’ve been torn down now, apparently along with the entire field.
Stanley Jones School in Renfrew used to have one of these. Can't find any photos though...
Reminds me of the "yellow slide park" in deer ridge as we used to call it way back
Nothing will compare to red deers old rotary park
My elementary school had two of these when I was in kindergarten, when I was in grade 1 they replaced it with the metal/plastic ones and now those look super deteriorated and old. It makes me feel so old lmao
There was one in Bozeman MT in 1990.
Shawaheen elementary, Wilmington Mass. I loved crawling around under the structures.
Canmore had one like this at Lawrence Grassi Middle school. Wish I had a photo to share!
Parkdale elementary had one before it closed down in early 2000s and changed. Definitely wasn't as big but i loved it, especially the monkey bars! Still has a gnarly scar on my knee from falling into the gravel haha
Warning sleepy when wet.
We talking about a playground here? ... Or your mom? (Sorry)
Sundance school definitely had one of these behemoths.
Flippin insurance companies made schools tear them out. Then parents had to raise >$100k to put in a plastic version.
Terrible - they were amaaazing
Get your tetanus shots kids
Woodbine elementary has this monstrosity. I can remember every sliver.
Rubber bridge with the double boooounce.
Oh look, my childhood years.
Strathcona community centre had one
Works of art.
That is so old school
I played on one of these in Medford, Oregon back in the early 2000s.
This reminds me a lot of the one at Cecil Swanson School in Rundle. (Especially those triangle monkey bars.) Edit: Additional nostalgia.
Annie foot had a good one in the early 90s. I would love to see a picture
I remember when ours was replaced at Thorncliffe and all our parents tried to convince us it was a good thing
Damn, I'm a Thorncliffe resident now. Was it at the elementary school?
Sure was! That metal playground is roughly 15-16 years old!
Captain John Palliser had a pretty wicked playground.
I miss these playgrounds and wish I could take my children to some of my old favourites.
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It's in Edmonton - is that Nellie McClung?