The last time before this summer that my husband went to Stratford Lions Pool, he arrived riding in an open pick-up truck bed, along with a passel of other little ones, driven by his farmer uncle.
Many things have changed since that time – including, thank heavens, much more knowledge about how to keep kids safe riding in cars and other vehicles – but the Lions Pool remains a centre of Stratford summer memories.
This outdoor pool, 94 years old in 2026, began as a civic project of the Lions Service Club. According to the Streets of Stratford entry, the pool “was built on land that had been a miniature golf course, at a cost of $15,899, with the Lions Club paying $7,014, and the Province of Ontario picking up the rest. The original bathhouse was expanded to more than double its size in 1948 and, in 1953, the pool was lengthened by 45 feet and one inch, which brought it up to the Olympic standard of 150 feet.”
By 1964, the annual maintenance costs for the facility grew too high for the Lions to cover, although their name remains on the pool to this day. The City of Stratford has been operating it as a public recreational service ever since.
According to the city’s website, “In 2007, the historic Lions Pool went under a redevelopment, in a response to change with the times. A new pool format was created and included the conversion of a 45-metre pool into two multi-use pools. One pool now includes a beachfront entry into a shallow bay with water-play features, while the other is a 25-metre lap and leisure pool.”
The pool’s setting is picturesque, along the Avon River just past the Thomas Orr Dam. Parents sitting on benches outside the fenced pool, watching the kids having lessons, are shaded by willow trees. The pool offers a mix of lessons, lane swims and family swims in that post-renovation shallow bay, complete with now-somewhat-faded fake palm trees that will send tiny jets of water into the air to rain down on the pool users, below.
Because it’s the only city-owned public pool in town, everyone goes there who doesn’t have access to a private pool, or who wants to take lessons in the summer.
There are indoor pools in Stratford for members of the local YMCA and for guests at three of the larger hotels: Rodeway, Arden Park and Bruce. Spruce Lodge, a non-incorporated municipal entity owned and governed by the County of Perth, the City of Stratford and the Town of St. Marys, oversees a continuum of housing for older adults and others needing supported care. One of their buildings, Spruce Lodge, has an indoor pool set up as a therapy pool with warmer-than-usual water and accessibility features. Members of the community can book fee-for-service children’s swim lessons from October to June, and book classes such as Aqua Fitness and Tot & Me.
Other communities near to Stratford, and smaller, have full-on aquatic centres. St. Marys in Perth County (population 7,386 as of the last census), about 19 kilometres from Stratford, has the Pyramid Recreation Centre, with the indoor pool there refurbished in 2025-6. The Township of Wilmot (population 21,429) has the Wilmot Recreation Complex located in the town of Baden (population 4,940), 30 kilometres from Stratford, with two indoor pools.
The presence of these fancy public all-season indoor pools in smaller communities does provoke much muttering in Stratford, which invested in a huge community recreation centre project completed in 2007 with two arenas, a walking track, the Agriplex Fieldhouse that can be set up as multiple badminton, pickleball, volleyball or basketball courts … but no indoor pool.
To add further insult to injury, the nearby Town of St. Marys has one of the best outdoor swimming pools around. A limestone quarry ceased operations in the 1920s and naturally filled in with water – my father, who grew up in that town, swam there regularly as a child in the 1930s and regularly dove off the quarry cliffs, miraculously escaping the kind of life-altering brain injury that results from that kind of uncharted diving. After the Second World War, the town bought the property and made it into an official swimming area, now marketed as “Canada’s largest freshwater outdoor swimming pool.” We usually get to the quarry at least once a summer, but it takes some organizing and a 20-minute drive, there and back.
In all my years living in Stratford, I’d never been in the Lions Pool. This summer, we decided to give it a try. It’s a 15-minute walk from our home, and $4.25 entrance fee for adults – sometimes, local businesses will sponsor an open swim and admission is free. Many families buy passes good for the whole summer.
The day was one of those postcard-perfect summer days, blue sky with cotton-ball clouds. From inside the pool, you can see the river’s willow trees, the skies and nearby floral gardens. Loud music blared, kids splashed, we paddled about. Neither of us are strong swimmers, or capable of doing multiple laps. We spread out our towels on the concrete deck, after the swim, and let the breeze start to dry us. “I don’t suppose they have one of those suit spinners in the change room?” says he who last came here in the open back end of a pickup truck. Not then, my love, and not now. Some things don’t change.
