Calgary Parks and Pathways

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

This highly informative tour guide introduces Calgary via its parks and
pathways. Bullick is a former pathway construction co-ordinator for
Calgary’s Parks and Recreation Department. This experience is evident
in the extensive and detailed pathway descriptions in this volume.
Bullick tells the user not only where to stop for the best views of the
city, but also where not to stop because the sewers smell.

The guide has 10 parts, each dedicated to a different pathway system or
park. Within each part the structure is complex, following the structure
of the pathways and parks. Bullick describes the pathways in sections,
digressing along branches as she comes to them. At the point of
digression, the user is given a page number where the description of the
main pathway resumes.

Descriptions are accompanied by maps and “At-a-Glance” boxes, which
supply key information about specific parks. Interspersed among the
descriptions are black-and-white photographs and numerous short essays
about human and natural-history subjects. This volume contains so much
detail that it should have been indexed.

While the contents of the guide are useful, there are problems with
language and writing. Punctuation is often inconsistent, misused, or
missing. There are many typographical errors.

Bullick sometimes seems to lose sight of her audience. While some parts
of the guide are written with the emotive adjectives of a lure-brochure,
others have the technical description of a parks management manual.
Still others read like chatty directions addressed to a friend. The
attempt at informality has resulted in some incorrect and unfortunate
word usage. In this volume we find roses that “mate,” a
“smattering of benches,” a “suspended pedestrian bridge,” and
two men who “feathered a nest for thousands of migratory birds.”

Overall, this is a functional pocket guide, but it would have been
greatly improved by objective editing and close proofreading.