E. coli closes the Prairie Winds water park
Prairie Winds is shut for the week, and the city wants your take on a fee increase.
Northeast Calgary lost a spray park this week, at least for now. Downtown picked up a slogan, and the Beltline picked up a sofa showroom.
The water park at Prairie Winds is closed for a week, and it is not for maintenance. Alberta Health Services has linked three cases of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli to the northeast Calgary facility. Anyone who visited between July 25 and Aug. 4 may have been exposed. The City of Calgary runs the park and shut it down starting Friday. Crews are cleaning and testing while the investigation continues. If your kids were running through it during that window and have been sick since, tell a doctor about those dates. It is a short closure with a long list of families attached to it.
Calgary starts talking about wildfire like a city problem
Calgary now has a wildfire prevention campaign, and the framing is blunt. Fire officials point west, from Vernon, B.C. to Spokane, Wash., where fires have pushed into communities at unprecedented rates this summer. Those fires have caused property damage and displacement, and in some cases injuries and deaths. Closer to home, the city says wildfire and other outdoor fires have on average increased in Calgary since 2020. Other municipalities are seeing the same trend. The ask is that residents look hard at their own property and do something about it, rather than assume a prairie city is exempt.
CouchHaus lands a Beltline storefront
CouchHaus has opened a showroom in the Beltline, bringing the Vancouver furniture brand to Calgary. The pitch is modular: customizable sofas, sectionals and pieces you can rearrange when the apartment changes. It is a sensible neighbourhood for that idea. The Beltline is full of condos, roommates and people who move every couple of years and would rather not replace the couch each time. Showrooms also say something about which blocks retailers believe in. A brand from out of province just put money on this one, which is its own small vote of confidence in the street.
Eleven new shops have opened here this year
CouchHaus is not the only new door in town. Avenue Calgary counted 11 stores that have opened in the city so far in 2026, and the mix is wider than usual. It runs from modular sofas to arts and crafts supplies to beauty products. Retail openings are a rough read on how confident people feel about spending money. Eleven in eight months is not the profile of a city pulling back. If you have been meaning to buy something with your hands instead of your thumbs, that list is basically a Saturday itinerary waiting to be used.
A fee on your gas bill is up for comment
Your natural gas bill is in play. On Aug. 7, a notice of application went to the Alberta Utilities Commission to amend the franchise fee agreement between the City of Calgary and ATCO Gas. In plain terms, Calgarians would pay more each month. The city is running a public notice period from Aug. 7 to 25 to collect feedback on the proposal. Franchise fees are the line item almost nobody reads, which is exactly why they tend to move quietly. If you have an opinion about paying more to heat your house, the window is open right now.
The city wants you back on Stephen Avenue
See You on Stephen Avenue. That is the slogan the city launched Wednesday, aimed at pulling more visitors into the heart of the downtown core. Stephen Avenue has been transformed as part of the effort. It has always been the shorthand answer when someone asks where downtown actually is, and it has spent years carrying a quiet office district on its back. The campaign is an attempt to make the pedestrian stretch a destination again, not just a lunch route. Whether a slogan can carry that is fair to ask. Go walk it and decide for yourself.