William Hawrelak Park

William Hawrelak Park — Edmonton’s festival heart, rebuilt and reopened

Sixty-eight hectares of meadow, poplar and open sky wrapped around a five-hectare lake, William Hawrelak Park is the piece of the North Saskatchewan River valley that Edmonton treats as its living room. This is where the city gathers: a summer weekend brings picnic smoke, paddle boats tracing slow circles on the lake and an amphitheatre crowd settling onto the grass; a February night brings snow sculptures and skate blades. After a full three-year closure for rehabilitation, the park reopened to the public on 13 March 2026, with a grand reopening celebration held on 30 May 2026 — so the lawns, lake, promenade and pavilions described here are all open again, and the festivals have come home.

Highlights

• The lake — a five-hectare artificial lake excavated between 1959 and 1964, dredged and reshaped during the rehabilitation, with a new paddle boat dock and a fresh lakefront promenade running along its edge.
• Heritage Amphitheatre — completed in 1985 and the largest outdoor amphitheatre in western Canada, with 1,133 fixed seats and room for roughly 2,900 once the grass slope is counted.
• Five mid-century pavilions — the Main Pavilion, Boat House and three picnic shelters, designed by the firm Bittorf & Wensley and built in 1967–68 and 1973; all five were designated Municipal Historic Resources in 2023 and restored rather than replaced.
• The new nature-themed playground — one of the most visible products of the rehabilitation, reached by fully paved, all-abilities pathways.
• Edmonton Heritage Festival — held here over the August Civic Holiday weekend since the association formed in December 1976, growing from eleven founding ethno-cultural communities to roughly 300 tents spread across 60 hectares, with a long-established Ukrainian pavilion among them.
• Silver Skate Festival — Edmonton’s longest-running winter festival, founded in 1990 by volunteers from the Dutch Canadian Club and the Edmonton Winter Triathlon Society; it returns to this park in February 2027 after spending the closure years at Sir Wilfrid Laurier Park.

What you’ll find

The layout is unusually generous: a broad valley bottom of open meadow, a ring road, a perimeter path that is now fully paved, and the lake as the visual centre. Everything that was buried and ageing — storm sewers, water distribution, irrigation, power, gas and telecommunications — was replaced during the rehabilitation, and every major building was rehabilitated rather than demolished.

• A new perimeter path and multi-use trails, entirely paved and connected into the wider river valley trail network.
• Four reservable summer picnic sites seating between 64 and 96 people, each with tables, canopies, power, fire pits and washroom access, plus one winter site and 37 drop-in picnic tables.
• The Main Pavilion, modernized with gender-inclusive washrooms, housing a restaurant on the lake with a dog-friendly patio.
• Community League Plaza — a year-round lakeside space with a fireplace and seating for up to 100 people.
• Boat rentals in summer, with swimming and private watercraft prohibited on the lake.
• Maintained ice and skate rentals in winter, plus cross-country ski use on the trails.

Things to do — and who it’s for

• Families with small children — the new playground, the flat paved loop that a stroller handles easily, and a lake edge shallow enough in feel to hold a toddler’s attention for an hour.
• Festival-goers — the Heritage Festival, Freewill Shakespeare Festival, Symphony Under the Sky and the blues festival all use the amphitheatre and the surrounding meadows.
• Skaters and winter walkers — maintained ice on the lake, rentals on site, and a warm pavilion to thaw out in.
• Cyclists and runners — the park is a natural anchor point on the valley trail system, which runs more than 160 kilometres across the city.
• Visitors with mobility needs — paved all-abilities trails, accessible picnic sites added during the rehabilitation, fourteen accessible parking stalls in the main lot and adaptable seating at the amphitheatre.
• Ukrainian-Canadian visitors — the park carries the name of the first mayor of Ukrainian descent to lead a major Canadian city, and the Heritage Festival’s Ukrainian pavilion has been part of the event’s fabric for decades.

Getting there & practical

The park sits in the river valley on the west side of the University of Alberta lands, tucked below the plateau in a bend of the North Saskatchewan. Two Edmonton Transit Service bus routes give direct service to the valley entrance: route 51, running University–Castle Downs via Westmount, and route 902, running University–NAIT via Wîhkwêntôwin; both stops connect to the park by accessible paved pathway. The nearest LRT station is University Station on the Capital Line, from which the bus connection is short. There is no admission charge to enter the park or use its trails, lawns and playground. The park is open daily from 5am to 11pm; the vehicle gate operates from 6am to 10pm, the Main Pavilion from 7am to 10pm, and the shelter washrooms from 9am to 9pm. Allow ninety minutes for a relaxed loop of the lake and promenade, half a day if you are picnicking, and a full day during a festival weekend.

When to visit

Summer is the park at maximum volume — long northern daylight that stretches past ten in the evening around the solstice, paddle boats on the lake, and back-to-back festival weekends culminating in the Heritage Festival on the August Civic Holiday. Autumn is the quiet reward: the valley’s poplars and birches turn gold in late September and early October, the crowds thin, and the perimeter path becomes a walker’s park rather than an event site. Winter here is not something to be endured around — it is a genuine feature. Edmonton sits far enough north that January daytime highs stay well below freezing and cold snaps past −30 °C arrive most years, and the city has built its winter culture on exactly that: maintained ice on the lake, skate rentals, cross-country skiing on the valley trails, and the Silver Skate Festival with its snow sculptures, lantern walks and night fire sculpture burn. Spring is the shortest and most changeable season, with breakup on the river, muddy off-path ground and the first green in May — a good time for birdwatching, since the valley supports around 150 bird species.

Good to know

The land was never meant to be a park. The City of Edmonton acquired it in 1922 after the Strathcona Land Syndicate forfeited it for unpaid taxes; the original plan had been a 500-lot residential subdivision on the valley floor. In 1954 Mayor William Hawrelak proposed instead that the city build a large riverside park here, arguing it would fit alongside the zoo, golf courses and picnic grounds the city was already developing. The lakes were dug between 1959 and 1964, and the park opened as Mayfair Park on Dominion Day, 1 July 1967. It was renamed William Hawrelak Park in 1982. Hawrelak himself was born on 4 October 1915 in Wasel, Alberta, to Ukrainian immigrant parents, Wasel and Anastasia Hawrelak — the ancestral family name was Havryliak. He married Pearl Shandro, daughter of Alberta MLA Andrew Shandro, and in November 1951 became the first person of Ukrainian descent elected mayor of a major Canadian city. He served three separate terms — 1951 to 1959, 1963 to 1965, and from October 1974 until his death — presiding over the boom that followed the 1947 oil discovery near Edmonton, during which the city gained a new city hall, the Valley Zoo, Fort Edmonton Park and a planetarium. His career was also marked by land-dealing scandals that twice forced him from office. He died of a heart attack on 7 November 1975, thirteen months into his final term; more than ten thousand people came to pay their respects as he lay in the council chambers. The park closed in spring 2023 for the rehabilitation and reopened on 13 March 2026.

Visitor tips

• Check the festival calendar before driving: on Heritage Festival weekend and other large event days the valley road and lots fill early, and transit or the trail network is far faster than a car.
• Book picnic sites ahead for summer weekends — the four large reservable sites with fire pits and power go quickly, though 37 drop-in tables remain first-come.
• Swimming is not permitted in the lake and neither are private boats; if you want to be on the water, use the seasonal rentals at the dock.

Questions & answers

Is Hawrelak Park open after the rehabilitation? Yes. The park closed in spring 2023 for a full three-year rehabilitation and reopened to the public on 13 March 2026, with an official grand reopening on 30 May 2026. All areas and amenities are accessible again.

What was actually rebuilt? The buried utilities — storm sewers, water distribution, irrigation, power, gas and telecommunications — were replaced, roadways and pathways were reconstructed, and every major building was rehabilitated. New elements include a nature-themed playground, a lakefront promenade, a paddle boat dock, more accessible picnic sites and a fully paved perimeter path.

Who was William Hawrelak? He was born in 1915 in Wasel, Alberta, to Ukrainian immigrant parents, and in 1951 became the first mayor of Ukrainian descent to lead a major Canadian city. He served three terms as mayor of Edmonton and died in office in 1975. The park, opened in 1967 as Mayfair Park, was renamed for him in 1982.

Can you swim in the lake? No. Swimming is prohibited, as are private and motorized watercraft. Seasonal paddle boat rentals operate from the dock in summer, and the rehabilitation included work to improve lake water quality by separating storm and sanitary sewers and adding a vegetative buffer to discourage geese.

Is there anything to do here in winter? A great deal. The lake is maintained as an ice surface with skate rentals available, the trails are used for cross-country skiing, one picnic site stays reservable through winter, and the Silver Skate Festival — running since 1990 — is scheduled to return to the park in February 2027.

How do I get there without a car? Edmonton Transit Service routes 51 and 902 stop at the valley entrance with accessible paved pathway access into the park, and the nearest LRT station is University Station on the Capital Line. The park is also directly on the river valley trail network, so cycling in is straightforward.

What are the opening hours? The park itself is open daily from 5am to 11pm. The vehicle gate runs 6am to 10pm, the Main Pavilion 7am to 10pm, and the shelter washrooms 9am to 9pm.

Which festivals use the park? The Edmonton Heritage Festival over the August Civic Holiday weekend, the Freewill Shakespeare Festival, Symphony Under the Sky and the city’s blues festival all use the Heritage Amphitheatre and the surrounding meadows, and the Silver Skate Festival uses the park in February.