Tracing the watery past of Lewis Park and the efforts to hold back the river
If forced to pinpoint the geographical heart of the Comox Valley, most locals would place Lewis Park, Courtenay high on the list. On summer days, the beloved gathering spaces and sports fields pull you in like a gravity well. But beyond the calm river and lazy days in the sun lingers an ongoing struggle between people and the forces of erosion.
Early settlement and the birth of Lewistown
Floodplains make good farmland. The first Comox Valley settlers knew this. So they pounded their pre-emption* corner stakes in the fertile soil of the Courtenay River delta in the early 1860s. They confidently referred to the area as “land.” And for a short time in the summer, that definition held true. As the wetter months set in, however, the land became spongy, then soggy, and finally sopping wet. It became gumboot country: this was a wetland.
One plot, pre-empted by a man named Charles Green, was particularly moist. Much of his acreage resembled a swamp, overgrown with thick bush that clung to the shore of the Courtenay River. After over a decade of trudging around the place, he sold it to William Lewis.
Courtenay history and the rise of Lewistown
In 1874, workers constructed a bridge that spanned the Courtenay River (now 5th Street Bridge), with one end landing on Lewis’s property. Because the ground was squishy here, they had to build a 55-metre-long wooden trestle on the approach to connect the bridge to firmer ground beyond the slough. At this spot (what is now the corner of 5th Street and Comox Road), Lewis built the Courtenay Hotel.
Over the years homes and buildings popped up around the landmark: blacksmiths’ shops, a dentist’s office, a hall, and a livery stable, plus an agricultural hall that stood where the Lewis Centre is now. Locals at the time referred to the area as Lewistown.
From farm fields to community sports ground
Fast-forward to 1914. The Courtenay Athletic Club leased a portion of Lewis’s farm fields along the river on a five-year term, with an option to extend. Community members began shaping the area to enhance recreation. They flattened and seeded the fields and removed the thick vegetation along the riverbank. In 1928 the City of Courtenay purchased the nine acres from Lewis’s widow, Margaret, for $5000. She agreed to the sale on one condition: that the area would be used solely as a sports field and playground.
“A river is never static. Its banks are always eroding, and its path ever changing — eventually, the river will win this struggle.”
Trees, shrubs, and grasses play an important role in flood mitigation. Their roots hold soil in place, slowing erosion, and their flexible bodies slow rushing water, allowing it to dissipate energy. The park’s naked shoreline had remained untested since 1914. A major flood hadn’t occurred in decades.
The Courtenay floods of 1935 and 1939
That changed on January 21, 1935, when a metre and half of snow fell—deep enough to lose a large dog in. Lewis Park’s pristine winter coat lasted only two days. The temperature soon rose, and the snowflakes turned wet. The rain continued for over a week. Finally, the flood peaked on January 31, when on the ninth straight day of rainfall, the freezing level had risen high into the mountains. Snowmelt from the entire watershed passed down into the Courtenay River. The area between the river and Back Road became one vast lake. The 1935 Courtenay flood left Lewis Park Courtenay under a metre of water.”
Once the flood waters receded, residents assessed the damage. Trees, stumps, and debris peppered Lewis Park like it was a log yard. Condensory Bridge had been washed away. Pieces of the structure became trapped in the park or flushed down the river. A large portion of the park’s bank had eroded away.
“The 1935 flood left Lewis Park under a metre of water, turning the area between the river and Back Road into one vast lake.”
To compensate for the loss of vegetation and protect the park from further erosion, the city constructed wooden cribbing, starting at the confluence of the Tsolum and Puntledge Rivers and ending where the slough meets the river.
Workers completed the wall in 1937, only two winters before its first test. On the night of November 14, 1939, residents of Lewistown awoke to water rushing through their front doors. While the 1935 flood had come slowly, giving people a chance to flee, this flood came suddenly—and the water kept rising.
A southeasterly brought gale-force winds and 83 mm of rain in 24 hours. The flood’s peak in the morning coincided almost perfectly with a high tide at 11:00 a.m. Again, the entire floodplain of the Courtenay River became Courtenay Lake. Residents stated that this flood was worse than 1935, and the new wall hadn’t helped much with erosion in the park. The city upped the ante. They installed a high dike behind the wooden crib wall around Lewis Park—an early effort in the long Comox Valley flood story.
Lewis Park’s Later floods
The river’s answer came over a decade later. After five straight days of heavy rain, a high tide coincided with an additional 57 mm of rainfall on November 13, 1953. The dike proved to be useful in reducing the damage to Lewis Park Courtenay, though residents reported this flood to be less severe than the previous two Courtenay floods.
“To protect the park from further erosion, the city constructed wooden cribbing along the river, a first step in humanity’s ongoing struggle with the Courtenay River.”
In 1977 the concrete bin wall that you can see today replaced the much-decayed 40-year-old wooden wall, the piles from which remain visible in the Courtenay river. The concrete wall has kept the park intact for half a century. But even concrete doesn’t last forever, nor does it stop erosion as well as you might think.
When moving water encounters a hard, flat surface, like the wall, its energy cannot dissipate. But the energy must go somewhere. This can cause erosion in other places along a river, where it would otherwise have occurred to a lesser degree, or not at all.
Rivers are never static: lessons from Lewis Park
A river is never static. Its banks are always eroding, and its path ever changing. This conflicts with human desires. Can modern humans truly work with a river in its natural state? Eventually, the river will win this struggle. Water has time on its side. The river has existed in a similar form for millennia, since the glaciers melted 10,000 years ago.
A century is a meaningful time frame for us, but nothing for the river. Next time you visit Lewis Park in Courtenay, take a moment to appreciate this moment in time—when this particular bend in the Courtenay river is dry for most of the year.
Pre-emption was the process whereby settlers could acquire parcels of Crown land as long as they lived on the land and made specific improvements to it within a certain period of time.
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