The North Saskatchewan River valley parks system is a continuous collection of urban parks in the North Saskatchewan River valley of Edmonton, Alberta.
Edmonton's river valley comprises over 20 major parks and attractions and forms the largest expanses of urban parkland in North America. Referred to as a "Ribbon of Green", the public river valley parks provide a unique urban escape area with park styles ranging from fully serviced urban parks to campsite-like facilities with few amenities. At 7,400 ha (18,000 acres) in size and 48 km (30 mi) in length, the river valley parks system consists of 22 ravines, which have a combined total length of 103 km (64 mi). It also includes 11 lakes. Most of the city has bike and walking trail connections. These trails are also part of the 235 km (146 mi) Waskahegan walking trail.
Several golf courses, both public and private, are also located in the river valley. The long summer daylight hours of this northern city provide for extended play well into the evening. Golf courses and the park system become a winter recreation area during this season. Cross-country skiing and skating are popular during the long winter. Four downhill ski slopes are located in the river valley as well, two within the city and two immediately outside.
The City of Edmonton has named five parks in its river valley parks system in honour of each of "The Famous Five".
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Famous quotes containing the words north, river, valley, parks and/or system:
“Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints
Of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.... As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.””
—J. Enoch Powell (b. 1912)
“There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The moral immune system of this country has been weakened and attacked, and the AIDS virus is the perfect metaphor for it. The malignant neglect of the last twelve years has led to breakdown of our country’s immune system, environmentally, culturally, politically, spiritually and physically.”
—Barbra Streisand (b. 1942)