I suppose that being European makes me expect that all cities built on rivers will have evolved around the water, and so development will have made best use of waterfront space. Calgary is defintely not one of those cities, in fact it's hard to think of a location in the city where anyone has said 'hey, let's build a restaurant or pub that enjoys the view of the river'. Instead everything is motor-oriented and the waterways of the Bow, Elbow and Fish Creek are almost untouched by development. There are exceptions: former refineries where oil seeps from the riverbank, sewage works, and large houses with 'No Trespassing' signs shoved in your face, but generally, the rivers are (sic) a natural backwater that is best explored by canoe. Just pick a day when the 'tubers' have stayed home....Today we paddled the Elbow River from a couple of km below the reservoir, into downtown, via the zoo (for ice cream) and thus on to highway 22X. That's around 29 km of paddling, which took four hours, including a half hour for lunch. What a fantastic paddle this is; it's never difficult or scary, and you'll probably see deer, coyote, pelicans and loads of other creatures.
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