Victoria Park, Kitchener
Victoria Park is the oldest and most centrally located park in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Situated in the heart of downtown Kitchener, Victoria Park is home to numerous events and festivities.
First opened in 1896, the park was built mostly on swampy farm land. The man-made lake is fed by Schneider Creek, surrounds three small islands, and is crossed by multiple bridges, one dating back to the creation of the park. The park also contains the Victoria Park pavilion, the Victoria Park Gallery and Archives, a bandstand, and a historic boathouse, now a pub and music venue.
The Gaukel street entrance features clock tower which used to sit atop the old Kitchener City Hall (from 1924), and before that, the town's fire hall. It was moved to the park entrance and complemented with a fountain and a sculpture of luggage, by local artist Ernest Daetwyler, symbolizing the various waves of immigration that have contributed the city's history.[1]
A cast-bronze statue of Queen Victoria is located in Victoria Park, along with a cannon. The statue was unveiled in May 1911, on Victoria Day (the Queen's birthday) in the tenth year after her death. The Princess of Wales Chapter of the IODE raised the $6,000 needed for the monument.[2]
In 1897, a large bronze bust of Kaiser Wilhelm I was installed to honour the region's prominent German-Canadian population, but it was removed and thrown into the lake by vandals in 1914 at the beginning of the First World War. The bust was recovered from the lake and moved to the nearby Concordia club, but it was stolen again in 1916, marched through the streets by a mob, and has never been seen again.[3]
In the fall of 2011, $10.1-million of restoration work on the park's lake was started, and in all 85,000 tonnes of sediment were removed from the lake bottom. Thousands of concrete and stone blocks were placed along the 2.2 kilometres of shoreline as a retaining wall to prevent erosion. While the overall area of the lake was slightly reduced, the waterway near the mouth of Schneider's creek at the north end of the park was widened to create a "fore bay" which slows down the water and allows sediment to settle all in one place for easy removal.[4]
References
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Victoria Park, Kitchener. |
- ↑ The Luggage Project
- ↑ Kitchener Public Library Trivia Page
- ↑ Bust of Kaiser Wilhelm I, Victorial Park, Kitchener, Ontario, Waterloo Public Library
- ↑ Heaviest lifting almost done at Victoria Park pond, Waterloo Record, 2012-03-26.