Park Location and History

Kelso Beach Park is located on the west shore of Owen Sound on Georgian Bay and is 9.86 hectares in size. It is classified in the City’s Official Plan (2006) as a “City Park” providing unique, specialized recreational facilities and services, serving users from throughout the City and adjacent communities

Kelso Beach Park is a unique park in Owen Sound’s system of parks and open spaces. It has a complex combination of active and passive facilities and spaces – some very specialized – and is home to a number of significant, well-attended special events.

The Park is partially on lands owned by the City of Owen Sound as well as lands leased from Transport Canada which include a water lot.

The Park’s history includes an ancient Nawash settlement. The following is an excerpt from the 2010 Master Plan:

“The mouth of the Pottawatomi River was the site of the First Nations ancient Nawash settlement. The Anishinaabe ‘territory’ extended from what is now Collingwood to Goderich. In the winter people moved in small groups in the hunting territories (coniferous forests) and each spring they returned to Nawash, a central location that was at the time a low-lying coastal wetland.

The shores of the bay have been filled over the years to make the land more usable for shipping and industrial purposes (e.g., wharfs, grain elevators) and to create Kelso Beach Park. The ‘clean up’ of the waterfront to create a beach was reportedly initiated and organized by Henry Kelso. For many years Kelso Beach Park was a flat, low and fairly open park, notoriously wet (soggy) with a small sandy beach, washrooms/change rooms and a picnic shelter.

In 1976 the Summerfolk Music and Crafts Festival was first held at Kelso Beach. The music festival was the catalyst for the redevelopment of the park in 1982 -83. Designed by landscape architects Gotfryd and Findlay and constructed by Harold Sutherland Construction, the new design included parking, a large amphitheatre, playing fields, plantings, playgrounds and walkways.

Other ad hoc modifications have been made to the park over the years, including addition of a roof over the main stage, the Summerfolk Circle (trees and stones) and a gazebo, and replacement of the playground.”