A beach within our reach?

We’ve just had the second hottest August in 20 years — by .04 of a degree, to be exact. So far, summer 2015 had the most days over 30 C than we’ve had in a very long time. It’s been hot from the unofficial start of summer, the Victoria Day long weekend in May, until now, the week before the unofficial end, Labour Day. Weather like this makes us forget about winter. It also makes us long for a beach; for somewhere to swim. And in Edmonton, we’re beach-deprived. Sigh. What we do have, however, is Hawrelak Park Lake — an idyllic little body of water in the midst of one of Alberta’s finest parks. There is parking aplenty, washrooms, picnic sites and an amphitheatre. What the park needs, and what the city needs, is a public place to swim.

Sure, there are outdoor pools aplenty. And it’s awesome what the city’s done with swimming at the Legislature and Sir Winston Churchill Square. Watching families and daycare groups filling those wading pools all summer is totally charming.

But there’s nothing quite like laying your towel on the sand and dipping your toes into a lake or a river. That is the stuff that Canadian summer memories are made of.

On Sunday, Dr. Chris Sikora, medical officer of health for the Edmonton Zone of Alberta Health Services, announced that Hawrelak Park Lake would, in fact, be ready and safe for the upcoming ITU World Triathlon event this weekend. The discovery of blue-green algae — something that causes skin rash and can make anyone who swallows the water sick — resulted in the lake being closed last week, putting the event in jeopardy.

The ITU event, which Edmonton hosted last year as well, is the only time anyone swims there. The fact that it was at risk of being unusable is embarrassing. With no backup swim location, they would have had to turn the event into a duathlon.

The ITU World Triathlon Series is the sport’s most elite. It comprises 10 events across the world in such places as Cape Town, Yokohama, Japan, and Australia’s Gold Coast. Athletes compete in bodies of water such as the South Atlantic Ocean, Tokyo Bay and the South Pacific. Having it in Edmonton is a coup and an honour, and we should not be fretting about blue-green algae in our lake.

It also doesn’t seem fair that the only Edmontonians allowed to swim in Hawrelak Park Lake are Paula Findlay and the other competing triathletes. Why not make it swimmable year-round?

The man-make Lake Summerside in the city’s south end is fantastic. With a sandy beach, and clean and cool swimming, it’s also one of the only great open-water swimming locations for longdistance swimmers. The problem is that it’s private, open only to those few thousand residents who actually live in Summerside, and it’s also funded by the upscale neighbourhood.

What about the rest of us? The city is interested in making an urban beach at Louise McKinney Riverside Park. Great, but the plan stipulates that people wouldn’t actually get to swim in the water. Which kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

Making Hawrelak’s lake a viable beach option wouldn’t be without complications. The lake is home to wildlife, and as Edmonton’s wetlands and natural areas have been greatly depleted over the last two decades, geese and ducks aren’t exactly spoiled for choice.

Then again, the lake was man-made in the first place. Is it such a stretch to make it as swimmable in summer as it is skatable in winter?

If it’s possible for world-class athletes, then it’s possible year-round. A lifetime of real Canadian summer memories makes it a worthwhile investment.