Glenmerry’s green spaces

Trail’s Glenmerry neighbourhood is full of large public green spaces, but most aren’t obvious to a casual observer. They’re pocket parks, but gosh, what big pockets. Several are adjacent to and surrounded by backyards, and you can’t see them from the street. Their access points are neither marked nor obvious. I only discovered some of these parks in recent years, one by accident, and another with help from a map. The biggest park is plainly seen and passed by hundreds of vehicles daily, yet it isn’t used very much, possibly because its entrances aren’t readily apparent either.

The suburban seclusion of these parks somehow makes them more appealing and intriguing to me, even though one might well question whether it makes any environmental or economic sense to maintain vast expanses of manicured lawns.

While the city looks after all of these spaces, more or less, five are officially designated parks and (usually) appear on maps: Andy Bilesky Park, Centennial Park, Glenmerry Park, Queen Elizabeth Park, and Tognotti Park. Others are unnamed and have no amenities. There’s also Columbia Riverview cemetery, which is not city-operated. 

My first thought was that such hidden parks must have been a common feature of subdivision planning of the 1950s, but that doesn’t turn out to be the case. It was more a matter of topography.

BC Assessment labels Centennial Park, Glenmerry Park, Queen Elizabeth Park, and Tognotti Park. It shows but does not label Andy Bilesky Park. It neither shows nor labels Columbia Riverview cemetery nor other unnamed green spaces.

The City of Trail’s tourist map labels (via a numbered key) Andy Bilesky Park, Centennial Park, Glenmerry Park, and Queen Elizabeth Park (just called “Elizabeth”). It neither shows nor labels Tognotti Park, the cemetery, nor the unnamed green spaces. The parks page of the city’s website lists all five official parks, but doesn’t mention the unnamed green spaces. 

Google Maps labels Andy Bilesky Park and the cemetery. It shows, but does not label, Centennial Park, Glenmerry Park, and the green belt east of Glenmerry Park. It neither shows nor labels Queen Elizabeth Park nor Tognotti Park. iMapBC (not shown here) labels Andy Bilesky Park, Centennial Park, Glenmerry Park, and Queen Elizabeth Park, but not Tognotti Park, the cemetery, nor other green spaces. 

Retired city clerk Jamie Forbes told me that when a subdivision is created, the Local Government Act requires developers to dedicate part of the land as park space, although this can be waived for smaller subdivisions. Glenmerry was built in two phases: the western portion began in the early 1950s and went as far as the school. The eastern portion started in the early 1970s.

The original Glenmerry subdivision plan designated a park where the RCMP building now sits along Laburnum Drive, but the spot was never developed for that purpose.

Glenmerry Park (aka Glenmerry School Park) and Queen Elizabeth Park, 3200 Highway Drive

The Trail Daily Times of Oct. 17, 1959 noted that land surrounding Glenmerry school would “eventually be shaped into a spacious recreation area for the children of this fast-growing subdivision. The parks commissioners and the school board will work in co-operation to make this an attractive and safe spot in which to play. At the moment there are lots of youngsters who go there to play ball, but the only landscaped and fully-set out part in Glenmerry is a small area between Lilac Crescent and Highway Drive, where ball games are out of the question because of all the surrounding houses.”

The school grounds, and an area adjacent to them, became known as Glenmerry Park, or Glenmerry School Park. A new school has recently been built on part of the site, but there is still quite a bit of land behind it, next to some neighbouring homes. Unlike most of the other Glenmerry green spaces, what remains of this park is not manicured, in part due to the school construction, which saw heavy equipment driving over certain sections.

Glenmerry School Park

The area between Lilac Crescent and Highway Drive mentioned in the newspaper story quoted above was at some point thereafter dubbed Queen Elizabeth Park. Like a number of local parks, it once had a wading pool, which is pictured in a Trail Historical Society photo from 1986. It’s since been decommissioned and turned into a basketball court. This park also has a playground. It’s accessible from two rights-of-way between homes along Lilac Crescent and there is a gated service entrance off Highway Drive.

Queen Elizabeth Park

Centennial Park

The largest of Glenmerry’s green spaces was created out of piles of sand left over from the construction of Highway 3B in the mid-1960s. The city decided to plant grass to make it more aesthetically pleasing. 

It was officially opened on Aug. 2, 1967, and dubbed Trail-Tadanac Centennial Park because it benefitted from government grants that marked the centennial of Canadian confederation that year. (After Tadanac amalgamated with Trail in 1969, it became just Centennial Park.)

The grand opening was a big deal, and included the presentation of centennial medallions to 34 longtime residents, speeches by a long list of dignitaries, performances by the Maple Leaf and Trail pipe bands, and the hoisting of flags by Navy League cadets. A plaque was unveiled on a large stone cairn, which is still there, and is the only signage in the park.

Trail Daily Times, Aug. 3, 1967

A fork of a creek whose name I don’t know flows under the park. A bit of the culvert sticks out above ground and is also the site of one of a few disc golf targets, seen below.

A recent visit also revealed the addition of Kelo the Kindness Snake. According to the sign, “This cheerful snake is made of kindness, creativity, and school spirit! Each rock is painted with care by students and staff!” You are invited to join by painting a rock with a kind message or design and adding it to the end to make the snake grow. 

In addition, the park has a couple of picnic tables, a sign warning of poison ivy, and a steep hillside that makes for good sledding. But mostly it’s an eight-acre manicured lawn. Although easily seen from the highway, it has no dedicated parking area, no gateway, and its access points are hidden, all of which probably contributes to its limited use. It’s accessible from Carnation Drive, near the bus stop and pedestrian tunnel to Laburnum Drive; through a right-of-way between two homes off Woodland Drive; or from the east end of Carnation Drive. (A comment about the lack of parking and directions was included in the city’s parks and recreation master plan, completed in 2013, but it didn’t lead to any changes.)

In 2015, the city looked at “naturalizing” the park. At the time, watering the lawn took 1.32 million gallons per week and summer maintenance cost $52,000. So they wanted to find ways to conserve water and reduce mowing. Among the ideas were an educational wetland and meadows for Indigenous plants. However, nothing seems to have been implemented. I don’t know if the city was able to reduce the park’s water consumption or mowing, but the lawn still looks pretty lush most of the time.

Andy Bilesky Park, 3360 Laburnum Drive

This baseball park, named for Trail’s legendary little league coach, was once a garbage landfill. Once full, it was developed as a sports complex, but according to Jamie Forbes, once in a while the fields have to be re-levelled as garbage rots and settles. It has two regulation-size little league fields, washrooms, a picnic shelter, concession, bleachers, a parking lot, and a cairn with a bas-relief portrait of Bilesky.

Tognotti Park, 1100 block, Dogwood Drive

The smallest of Glenmerry’s parks is bounded by Woodland Drive, Dogwood Drive, and Carnation Drive, and tucked behind some homes. You can access it by sidewalks from either Woodland Drive or Dogwood Drive. (The former almost lines up with one of the access points to Centennial Park across the street.)

I’m not sure how this space came to be. It’s an irregular polygon carved out of another irregular shape, and flat enough that it could have been built upon. Prior to 1994, the park was unnamed and I don’t think it had any amenities. In June of that year, neighbour Wendy Glover asked city council to name it Tognotti Park, after the late Al Tognotti, a local businessman, city councillor, and civic booster who had also lived nearby. He died in 1986.

I don’t know when city council granted Glover’s request, but she also asked that playground equipment be installed in the park, which it now has, along with a bench.

Unnamed spaces

Depending on how you count them, Glenmerry has as many as eight unnamed green spaces that the city maintains (although in at least one case, neighbours were mowing the lawn because they felt it was neglected). 

To the east of Glenmerry School Park is a green belt interrupted by Cottonwood Drive, Carnation Drive, and Woodland Drive. It’s bounded by the backyards of homes on those three streets as well as Rosewood Drive and Dogwood Drive. Some maps shade these spaces in green, others don’t. They have no amenities.

Jamie Forbes says these areas were left out of the 1970s subdivision plan due to their steep slope that was too difficult to build on. But grass was planted and the city still mows the huge lawns. The section between Dogwood and Carnation, in particular, would be a natural amphitheatre.

Forbes says in the 1980s, there were no building lots for sale in Trail and younger people started to move to Fruitvale to build there. Council asked him to prepare a report on subdividing some green space in Glenmerry.

He identified 13 areas where single family lots could be created, but again, topography would have made building homes challenging. Council didn’t proceed with the plan, probably because by then Miral Heights was being developed. “I also think they were afraid of the backlash they would receive from the adjacent property owners who valued the green space beside their house,” he says.

In particular, there was an attractive spot between 3650 and 3660 Rosewood Drive that was once a gully where the city disposed of garbage. Forbes says the city considered the property unstable and therefore didn’t think it could be built upon.

But the matter was put to the test in 2013, when a young couple approached the city about buying the space. Their offer was tentatively accepted, subject to an appraisal and geotechnical assessment that they would also have to pay for. Additionally, they were on the hook for servicing the lot and removing top soil, and subject to stipulations preventing them from subdividing or reselling.

Many residents did indeed get upset at the prospect of losing a public space and formed the Glenmerry Citizens Group to fight the move. They gathered 905 names on a counterpetition.

Interestingly, the closest neighbour refused to sign. Helen Basttistella, who had lived next door since 1967, said she supported the sale because it would stop the extensive dumping on the bank below that included yard waste plus fruits and vegetables that attracted bears.

“A park it is not, never has been,” she wrote. “Simply put, it is a dump, an eyesore and a disgrace.” One of the couple’s parents was also puzzled at the uproar: “Why, if this sacred lot is so coveted by so many residents of Trail and area, has no one ever utilized it?”

The counterpetition process required 598 valid signatures to force council to either drop the idea or hold a referendum. Of the 905 names submitted, 798 were considered valid. Council abandoned the sale. Today a sign on the spot warns people against dumping, although it’s disappearing into the vegetation. There’s also a bench overlooking the Columbia River.

The contentious site on Rosewood Drive.

Just down the street are a few more such spaces: between 3680 and 3832 Carnation; between 3832 and 3860 Carnation; and on the south side of the 3900 block of Carnation, where there’s a bus stop, a bit of grass, a garbage bin, and a bench with a lovely view of the river, pictured below.

In addition, there is a large green space along the riverbank at the rear of the townhomes on Laurel Crescent, pictured below.

Columbia Riverview Cemetery (formerly Knights of Pythias Cemetery), 3400 block, Highway Drive

This lawn cemetery was reportedly established for Knights of Pythias members in 1928, but a couple of marked graves are from 1917 and 1927. The name was changed when the cemetery became available to the general public. According to findagrave.com, about 400 people are buried here, including George L. Merry, on whose property the Glenmerry subdivision was built, and Noble Binns, an early alderman, mayor, and magistrate who is the namesake of Binns Street.

The cemetery in 2002. The metal arch has since disappeared.

The cemetery in 2025.

— With thanks to Jamie Forbes and Addison Oberg