From whiskey barrels to underwear and even a discarded table, volunteers have uncovered some unusual finds during Calgary’s annual Pathway and River Cleanup.
On Friday, hundreds of volunteers gathered at St. Patrick’s Island Park to kick off Calgary’s annual Pathway and River Cleanup, a citywide effort focused on keeping parks, pathways and riverbanks litter-free.
Among the longtime volunteers were plenty of first-timers, including 10-year-old Indigo Dinsdale, who says when her dad suggested helping out, she jumped at the chance.
“Dad just asked me, like, a couple of days ago, do you want to come clean up some trash with me? And I said, yeah. I think it’s good to come out and clean up the trash because it helps the community,” Dinsdale said.
More than 2,000 volunteers are fanning out across 170 locations this weekend, cleaning nearly 300 kilometres of Calgary’s pathways and river valleys.
The effort began in 1967, when a young Calgary girl wrote to the newspaper after spotting a mattress along the Elbow River, sparking a community tradition that’s still going strong today.
And while volunteers expect the usual litter, organizers say some discoveries over the years have definitely stood out.
“Couple of years ago, we found some old whiskey barrels in the river,” said Jim Davis, Parks Program Coordinator, Calgary Parks & Open Spaces. “We find bike frames, ice chest coolers, sometimes along the river.”
But Kate MacComb, who is a supervisor of Communications & Community Relations at ConocoPhillips Canada, said some finds are dangerous and crazy.
“We have found sleeping bags, obviously, there might be some encampment stuff. But then there have been funny things. We often find, you know, like a pair of underwear or something like that,” she said.
At the kickoff event on Friday, even Calgary’s mayor rolled up his sleeves. Jeromy Farkas joined volunteers searching for debris, helping haul away one unusually large find he proudly showed off like a trophy, adding it to a list of memorable cleanup discoveries from his volunteer days.
“I got my start as a community volunteer. I was involved in the Weaselhead/Glenmore Park Preservation Society. The biggest thing that I’ve ever had to pull out of the river is an abandoned truck while volunteering at a Weaselhead cleanup event,” Farkas said.
By the end of the event, volunteers at St. Patrick’s Island Park had filled bag after bag of trash, pulling everything from metal wires and an old wheelchair out of the area, along with the mayor’s latest find: a discarded table.
Organizers say the cleanup is about more than picking up trash; it’s about building pride in shared spaces and protecting Calgary’s rivers for the seasons ahead.