We're on the hunt for Canada's best splash pad

Most provinces in Canada will see warmer-than-usual temperatures this summer, and as per usual, people in cities will feel the heat more intensely than those in rural areas due to the heat island effect.  

Municipalities are grappling with extreme heat and how to keep people safe during increasingly warm summers, debating maximum temperature policies and opening cooling centers during heat waves. But how about things that already exist in cities, built without climate change in mind, that now serve to lessen its impacts?

Enter splash pads, which are speckled across parks from coast to coast and serve primarily as a place for kids to play around during the hot summer months. But as those hot months get even hotter, they also serve as refuges for people in cities without air conditioning. 

Canada’s National Observer is digging into splash pads in the age of unbearably hot summers and wants to hear from you about your local splash pad. Is there one keeping you and your family cooler? What makes it great? We’re on the hunt for Canada’s best splash pad and will consult with experts to get to the bottom of it. 

We’ll also take the opportunity to dig into the way our urban environments do and don’t serve people during extreme heat.

For submission’s sake, a splash pad is a public water area without a pool. Think: nozzles, jets, spray guns, fountains for playing in. We are only interested in those that are currently open and freely accessible to the public – so nothing private, nothing indoors, nothing planned for the future or closed. 

Send your submissions to [email protected] by Monday July 21. 

Submissions should include:

• A photo of the splash pad, taken by you or which you have permission to use
• A description of your favourite features — what do you or your kids like best about it?
• Its exact location (a Google Maps pin would be great!)

All complete entries will be entered to win a Canada’s National Observer water bottle and a free one-year subscription.