[1] The park is located west of the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo and the neighborhood of Inglewood, at the western end of International Avenue, inside a bend of the Bow River.

[2] On October 21, 1880, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) signed an agreement with the federal government to build a 1,900 mile-railway from Kamloops, British Columbia to Callander, Ontario.

'"[3] Pearce convinced the CPR to build the line through Calgary, with the Bow River watershed used to irrigate lands in southern Alberta.

"[4][5] By 1915, Pearce's vision of a vast irrigation system had been realized; land that Palliser thought would never support settlement, was "fertile and valuable".

A year before he died he donated his estate in the southeast of Calgary, which occupied about 80 hectares (200 acres; 0.80 km2) in a curve along the Bow River as it flows through the city.

[2] Pearce "believed in urban parks" and he "is the reason so much of the Bow remains accessible" to the public as it runs through the city core.

It has a playground, picnic sites, seasonal washrooms, cross-country skiing, walking and biking trails, and access to the kayak rapids.

The nature interpretation facility is "jointly developed and operated" by the province of Alberta, the City of Calgary, along with private and non-profit sectors.

Balsam Poplar Populus balsamifera, which are also known as call Black Cottonwoods, prefer a very moist soil and can tolerate flooding.

[8] Harvie Passage, formerly the Calgary Weir, is part of a network of canals and ponds originally created by the CPR in the early 20th century to divert water from the Bow River.

[11][Notes 1] The CPR construction of the diversion weir at the bend in the Bow River in Calgary was the first stage in what would become a network of irrigation canals and reservoirs.