I have a bike, I have a river, and I have some time. What should I do with all three? Volunteer at the Bow River Flow Festival, or bike around the Bow?

I did both at the second annual Bow River Flow Festival, promoting self-powered transportation, environmental art, and celebratory music occurring alongside Memorial Drive. Not so long ago, this festival encouraged self-sustainability for Calgarians and other modes of transportation – not only cycling, but transit, walking, and even skateboarding. This celebration aimed to educate and engage Calgarians- even with guest speaker and Olympic medallist Kristina Groves, who gave a press conference on taking responsibility and realizing the impact her carbon footprint made. This Clean Air speed skating champion was definitely a motivational and charismatic character, encouraging myself to be aware of my own carbon footprint and reminding me of the natural beauty of the Bow River, often taken for granted by sensually-adapted Calgary.

This festival also meant to highlight and celebrate the Bow itself, as a central component of Calgary culture, recreation, leisure, attraction, and much more, being directly located in the heart of Calgary. The habitat for many ducks and geese, (not to mention a lot of fish!), rocky shores lined with dusty pebbles and bike paths, eroding shelves of soil, turbulent rapids- a perfect destination for glorious pictures and running regiments on paths harbouring beside the Bow- we sometimes forget to appreciate this river that flows through our city. So many families and individuals stopped by and joined us, invited to draw colourful and lively chalk pictures on the road, dip their feet into pails of colourful paint and decorate the sidewalks, and even participate in mini bike races along Memorial Drive! Many mayoral candidates certainly enjoyed their mini bike race they partook that day, judging from the youthful delight in their faces, and the hilarity in the general difficulties of operating a child-sized bike.

My favourite aspect of this event was when I was able to battle against a peculiar man in a red and white checker suit. The duel you ask? Well, I could hardly pass the chance to participate in one of my favourite pastimes being that of- CHESS. Hunkering down onto a quaint folding chair, and facing my opponent across a painting of a chessboard, set in a majestic gold frame, the peculiarities of playing against a man in a checker suit and on a painting did not stop there. To my surprise, I was intrigued by the fact that I had all 18 of my ebony wooden pieces to play with, but my opponent did not. He had a depleted army of seven pieces, consisting of pawns, two knights, and a lonely bishop! He had played previous games before mine, and had quaintly given his pieces away to each adversary that had dared to challenge him, acknowledging their game. With little difficulty, my oppressive and overwhelming army successfully checkmated his king, and I in succession had received an autographed chess piece (a pawn, and sitting quite respectfully on my bedroom table) as a memory of our epic chess battle.

Don’t worry, there was a subsequent lesson from this rather strange chess game, even though the man in the checkered suit wasn’t even a professional chess player! He was an advocate for the arts in Calgary, and suggested in a cryptic answer, even when probed, was perhaps the game represented the Bow River itself, the more we take away from the river, the less dividends we can expect to be returned. The more chess pieces he gave away, the less likely it was he was going to win the subsequent game.

Nonetheless the afternoon was fairly enjoyable despite the unexpected downpour, and involved many families in activities that not only engaged Calgarians, but also educated and encouraged them to “ride the drive ”- carpool, take transit, ride a skateboard, bike, rollerblade or walk instead of driving a car.

For more great volunteer projects to get involved in, visit Youth Central’s website here.