Swimming hole shortage makes us like fish out of water
He speaks only a few words of English, but Teodor knows how to get his message across. “One trout today,” he says, holding his hands about a foot apart. “And 20 pike yesterday.”
The Romanian visitor, in town to see his daughter and grandson, also clearly knows a thing or two about fly fishing. As he stands along the river not far from the Glenmore dam on Friday afternoon, he casts his line into the Elbow with precision and grace. “Fishing is good,” says the 63-year-old with a wide smile. “A beautiful place.”
Locals who know a thing or two about what’s been called the “contemplative man’s recreation” are well aware of this fishing spot in the heart of the city. On most summer days, you can usually find several anglers along the river’s edge as they stake their position. When it’s really hot out, they must also contend with the hundreds of young people launching their rubber rafts for a leisurely float down the river.
On this day, though, Teodor has this urban oasis all to himself. Even though the haze from forest fires in Idaho has lifted and the bright sun has come out, not a single rafter interrupts his casting.
Over the past week, in fact, the rafters have mostly stayed away despite typical searing August afternoons. Living on a street close to their launching spot, I can usually gauge their activity levels by the number of young people on my front lawn blowing up their rafts, as well as the discarded Slurpee cups and beer cans at the end of the day.
Two months after the great flood of 2013, though, life for water-loving Calgarians has a decidedly different feel in these dog days of summer. The anglers are fewer and farther between; the rafters, despite the lifting of restrictions on floating down the Elbow and Bow Rivers, aren’t rushing to jump into the sludgy brown waters, a trend that is likely being welcomed by city police and those who reside along the rivers’ edge.
For lovers of all kinds of water, in fact, the world is a little topsyturvy these days. My own local indoor city-run pool, usually deserted at this time, has been packed with displaced regulars of the Talisman Centre, the downtown YWCA and the recently-upgraded outdoor pool at Stanley Park, three facilities damaged by the flood that, when running, serve the fitness needs of more than 10,000 active Calgarians.
When she was planning the schedule for the outdoor pool she oversees in Calgary’s inner southwest, Hayley Saunders couldn’t have known she’d be the beneficiary of a city swimming hole shortage.
“We’ve had a lot more lane swimmers and quite a few inquiries from water polo clubs and swim teams,” says Saunders, program director for the Marda Loop Community Association, which includes the local outdoor pool just off 14th Street S.W. “We’re ahead on our revenue over last year,” she adds. “We had pretty lousy weather in July, so the flood closures definitely made a big difference.”
Jim McLennan says the postflood reaction of many who love being near the water hasn’t been welcome in the least.
“People have cancelled trips here because they fear the Bow River may be dead,” says the famed fly fishing guide and instructor based in Longview. “It’s really affected those whose busi- nesses depend on the fishing on the Bow.”
While McLennan acknowledges that the flood waters wiped out longtime launch spots, killed many fish and redesigned entire rivers, it is more of an interruption than a disaster. Those who love the sport, he says, should embrace the new environment: “Rivers aren’t static, it’s us that want them to be the same every time we go out,” he says. “Adapting to them is what fly fishing is all about.”
For people like my new fly fishing friend Teodor, spending time near the water in Calgary is already a highlight of his first visit to not only the city, but Canada. “Calgary is super,” he says as he casts his fly in the water for the umpteenth time. “And good fishing.”