Sunday, January 27, 2013 Idylwylde Library, Edmonton
Some city pools and libraries are closer together than others, I have discovered by bus and foot in Edmonton. I think the two I visited today are the closest: I can see the Bonnie Doon pool building across the field outside this library windows. Even on Sunday, buses are adequate: Bus 1 took me downtown and Bus 8 took me to the pool within an hour today.
Most pools are within ten blocks of a library: Jasper Place Pool and Jasper Place Library, Peter Hemingway Pool and Woodcroft Library, Commonwealth Pool and Sprucewood Library, Hardisty Pool and Capilano Library, Confederation Pool and Whitemud Crossing Library, Londonderry Pool and Londonderry Library, Kinsman Pool and Stanley A. Milner Library, Scona Pool and Strathcona Library, and Mill Woods Pool and Mill Woods Library.
A few pools are more than ten blocks, from a library: Terwilligar Pool and Riverbend Library, and Grand Trunk Pool and Calder Library.
A few pools are not close to any library: A.C.T., Eastglen, and O'Leary.
A few libraries are not close to any pool: Abbotsfield, Lois Hole, and Castledowns.
I have been to all pools but Scona and Mill Woods, and to all libraries but Londonderry and Mill Woods.
My one-year pool pass for low income people gets me in free at all city pools. My $12 annual library fee gets me free internet access and borrowing at all city libraries. Had I gotten the pool pass first, it would have given me no-fee library use.
Each pool has unique features. Most are part of recreation centres which also have fitness centres and perhaps a skating rink. Terwilligar has four skating rinks. Eastglen and Confederation are saltwater, the latter a larger pool. Kinsmen is the biggest: two 50m, 8-lane pools. Commonwealth and Terwilligar have beach entries, the latter pool larger. Bonnie Doon and Peter Hemingway have large bleachers, the latter pool larger. Londonderry and A.C.T. are family-oriented, non-rectangular, the latter pool smaller. Hardisty and Jasper Place are about the same size, the latter's hot pool bigger, the former's steam room bigger.
Jasper Place's pool, the closest to where I stay, 14 blocks away, has a 5m platform. Most pools have diving boards. Some have ropes. Many have waterslides: Terwilligar's is the longest, Jasper Place's and Commonwealth's the steepest, I recall.
Bonnie Doon's steamroom, with three levels, is the hottest I found. Its saunas are in the change rooms, unlike other pool's saunas. Kinsman has no hot pool, and only a small sauna.
Each library has internet access. The most crowded are Stanley A. Milner and Jasper Place. The least crowded are Whitemud Crossing and Lois Hole. I can almost always get online within minutes of walking into a library.
The biggest library is Milner, the smallest Jasper Place, temporarily housed in an office building while a new library goes up a few blocks away. It reminds me of the Edson Public Library in the basement of town hall until Edson's new library went up in the 1970s. I'll be home in British Columbia before Jasper Place's new location opens in 2013.
Music and booksales are two remarkable library features I have found. I have borrowed a bewildering variety of compact disks. A pre-Christmas weekend booksale in the downtown library, Milner, formerly Centennial, charged $10/box of books and cds on its last day. An early February sale will do the same. I bought 20 cds and 20 books for $10.
If I keep visiting pools, and walking hither and yon, here and back in British Columbia, then I might live long enough to read all those books.
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