K-DAYS PARADE BACK ON JASPER
And it’s about time, Paula Simons says
Long ago, when this city was a simpler place — and when downtown was much more cosmopolitan — the Klondike Days Parade always went down Jasper Avenue.
Every July, tens of thousands of people would cram Jasper Avenue for the biggest event of the Edmonton summer. They’d climb on top of telephone booths and rooftops. They’d pack the sidewalk five people deep. They’d shimmy out onto office window ledges. Some came in 1890s attire, or what they thought was 1890s attire. Most came in regular summer wear.
Looking at archival photos of the parade in the Journal library is a bittersweet thing. Jasper Avenue circa 1965 looks like a contemporary urbanist’s dream, a welcoming, vibrant streetscape so full of diverse and interesting architecture, lined with pedestrian-oriented independent businesses. No wonder people flocked to see the parade there. It was a street they already knew and loved.
And yes, the Klondike Days Parade, with its borrowed, historical theme, was hokey. It was silly. But it was part of what made Jasper Avenue special.
It’s been decades since the K-Days parade last went down Jasper Avenue. It’s been so long, in fact, that no one at Northlands or the City of Edmonton could tell me when the parade last followed that route.
The parade started getting bumped off the main street years and years ago, sometimes because of construction and later thanks to a woefully misguided “beautification” project that put gigantic “decorative” bollards and planters in the middle of the road.
In the 1980s and 1990s, as Jasper Avenue sank into decay and decline, the parade, which had moved north to 102nd Avenue and 103rd Avenue, suffered its own decline in size and popularity. That wasn’t simply due to location, of course: The parade also suffered from theme exhaustion and from competition from new summer festivals. Still, it must be said that watching the parade on side streets, along blank walls, just wasn’t the same.
But now, at long last, the parade is back where it belongs. This Friday’s K-Days Parade will go straight down Jasper Avenue, starting at 97th Street at 10 a.m., and marching west to end at 108th Street, a.k.a. Capital Boulevard.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to have it back on our main street,” said Ian O’Donnell, the head of the Downtown Business Association. “That’s where a parade should be, on your main commercial street. And our downtown’s main street is Jasper Avenue.”
Many people come to the parade, he said, who don’t often come downtown. So this is a chance to show off the new Jasper Avenue, to convince suburbanites to return to Jasper Avenue.
As part of that, O’Donnell wants to encourage businesses along Jasper Avenue to get into the parade spirit. His own group will be co-hosting a pulled-pork barbecue in Abbey Glen Park, at Jasper Avenue and 102nd Street, with proceeds going to the Northlands Agricultural Education Fund.
Friday’s event won’t exactly be like the parades of 50 years ago, of course.
The Klondike Days theme is long gone. It’s now just K-Days, with the K standing for nothing in particular. And it will be a much shorter parade than in the past — not just far shorter than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, but shorter than last year’s version.
Still, returning the parade to its rightful, historic place on Jasper Avenue is a fantastic step — or march — in the right direction. We want to animate and showcase downtown’s main drag. We want to highlight its new generation of shops and restaurants. We want to show suburban visitors how much fun Jasper Avenue can really be when it’s filled with happy people.
There’s an added fringe benefit to the new parade route. It ends at 108th Street, home of a newly installed Canada 150 sculpture garden and just north of the newly revamped legislature grounds and Federal Building, where Calgary singer Jess Smith will give a free noon-hour concert in the outdoor Capital Plaza. It’s a chance not just to bring Jasper Avenue a needed boost of energy, but to inject a little carnival-like atmosphere into Capital Boulevard and the legislature precinct.
The K-Days Parade will probably never regain pride of place as our community’s biggest happening. Still, it’s lovely to see Jasper Avenue resuming its place as the natural home of Edmonton’s oldest parade.
Long may children, old and new, celebrate there.