Odell Park
Odell Park sits on a hill overlooking downtown Fredericton. At 432 acres it is slightly larger than Toronto’s High Park (399 acres), but about half the size of Manhattan’s Central Park (843 acres). Exploring Odell Park’s perimeter took several hours.
With the exception of the occasional park ranger ferrying equipment or collecting garbage, you won’t find any vehicles in Odell Park. High Park, however, is full of private cars unless you take to the woods.
Odell Park’s network of trails stretches to 16km, and the trails dip and climb steeply, compared with High Park. If you’re a runner taking in the full trail, you’ll have legs of jelly before long.
In the several hours I spent in Odell Park, I saw a handful of people. Mostly people of a certain age out for their power walk, but one runner with his dog.
The first thing that struck me about the forest in Fredericton is how thick it is compared with High Park. If you leave the trail, you can’t simpy duck and weave your way around unless you’re the size of a squirrel. In High Park you can easily leave the trails and still maintain a decent walking pace.
If you want to see more photos of Odell Park, I’ve put up a gallery.
Odell Park is lovely. Can it get better? Yes and no. South of Fredericton’s downtown, higher up on the hills, sits the University of New Brunswick woodlot. At roughly 3,700 acres, the UNB woodlot is considerably larger than Odell Park and makes up anywhere from 25 to 34 per cent of Fredericton’s forest (depending on your source). But not for long.
King George III granted the woodlot to UNB in 1800. Portions of it were farmed until the early 1900s. And the UNB heating system relied upon its woods for fuel until the 1950s. Until recently, the woodlot served as grounds for the UNB forestry department, and, like Odell Park, as a refuge for animals, walkers, and runners.
But not for much longer. The UNB wants money, so it has been selling portions of the woodlot to developers. They’ve said they’ll reserve half of the woodlot as a park. To “protect” one development, a Home Depot, the UNB killed 24 beavers to prevent them from building dams and damaging the newly built roads and bridges. I suspect the only areas that will be protected will be the wetlands that would be too expensive to drain and develop.
I think it’s a travesty.
What makes Fredericton unique, to me, is that it’s a town in the middle of a forest. Or it was. City planners, if they exist, don’t seem to have a plan for the city beyond brutally ugly strip malls and housing developments. City council appears to be overjoyed to do whatever it takes to encourage wild, unplanned, development. Want to knock down several hundred acres of trees and build a Wal-Mart or a Home Depot? Give us five minutes to rezone the area and issue you a building permit.
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