Great Locations To Play Pokemon Go In Edmonton and Calgary

Poke-Grafitti seen on a wall in downtown Edmonton

Pokemon Go took the North American mobile gaming world by storm in July 2016, with the app being the number one app in the Itunes store and more popular than any social media competitors.  No longer top dog, it is still a very popular mobile game.

I started playing it too and it has been a blast, but after a month of it, my enthusiasm along with that of many others has died down from a fierce bonfire to a nice toasty camp fire.  It is a pretty fun game as everyone loves wandering around and capturing pokemon in the real world environment.  There is always that thrill of capturing a rare pokemon or desired pokemon with a pokeball, but the trade-off is that there is a massive time investment required to get the full enjoyment out of the game (even if you are getting fit by walking around).  It takes a huge amount of time to complete a pokedex or to level up so you can both capture higher-level pokemon and be able to level up your pokemon for gym battles.  There is also the monetization aspect of the game which could cost you more than paying for a full Nintendo DS game and you don't get a storyline.  Purchased coins can be used to expand your inventory, store more pokemon, obtain lures to draw more pokemon in, and purchase incubators to hatch more eggs (eggs give you stardust, more pokemon, and candies to evolve and level them up). 

For most people it is next to impossible to complete a pokedex anyhow due to region specific rares. I'm at the point where I've completed about 85% of my pokedex by capturing or evolving pokemon but it isn't much fun to complete the rest as it is freaking hard to find some of these pokemon unless you live in some really big cities where it is a happy pokemon hunting ground.   I've never seen a snorlax either (it has appeared on my radar once and I couldn't find it) and the randomness in the game for encountering rares actually kind of sucks as some people are lucky (they literally stumble over snorlaxes) and others just aren't (the game also doesn't work too well in rural or small town areas).  Still, I'll keep playing for now and Niantic is improving the game by changing spawns, fixing the busted poke-radar at some point, etc.

To get to the point I'm at,  I've been fortunate to be able to hunt in both Calgary and in Edmonton without going out of my way for an out of town poke-expedition.  Here are some great hunting grounds in the two cities.  When you hunt you need to spend at least a couple of hours looping around, but some lucky people have spent 4 to 6 hours just to get a rare or two.  I'm never there when they spawn so my timing is bad.  Both Edmonton and Calgary have lots of drowsies, but I have never seen a tauros which is the North American only pokemon.

Edmonton Legislature
The area around the Provincial Legislature building, especially the south grounds is a really good hunting ground as there are numerous pokestops to replenish supplies at and there are four pokestops by the lawn bowling green that are often lured.  As of mid-August/early Sept, this place is currently crawling with clefairy and ponyta, the odd water pokemon (like squirtles, horseas, staryu) as of August/early Sept.  It was a geodude nest with some growliths (they still show every so often) in early August that switched mainly to Ponyta, and I'm sure it'll switch again in September.  There is plenty here that isn't ratatas or pidgeys.

All the lured pokestops south of the legislature.

Also this is one of the areas that spawns magikarp, dratinis, and even dragonites.  I have never been able to capture a dragonite here (missed one by 5 minutes), but I have caught aerodactyls, a lapras, and several dratini.  It is almost best to come here in the evenings as it seems like more people, more lures, and the later time of day produces more pokemon.  I think this is the best place to hunt pokemon in the city, but parking is hard (all on the road along the east side of the Legislature)  and there are no amenities in the area.  Public bathrooms are in the Annex building on the north side of the Legislature, and in the SE corner of the south grounds behind the bandstand, but they all close by 10 PM.

University of Alberta (Edmonton)
This place is packed full of pokestops, with a very busy set of four by the University Museum's house in the NW corner of the campus.  The main quad which is anchored by the Science building to the north and Student's Union Building (SUB) on the south end is a good hunting ground.  You could do a massive loop from the NW corner, head south through the main quad to end up at the south side of SUB then head back north again.  The set of four stops by the NW corner are often lured and it was busy in July, but I found it wasn't so busy in August or early Sept.  This set of four stops doesn't produce many water/grass/fire pokemon, but there are a ton of pidgeys, bugs, and a scattering of other types.  It is a good place for leveling if you don't want to move too much as you can reach all four stops from a stationary position.

The NW set of four pokestops on Campus.

The pokestops down by SUB on campus (SE corner of SUB is the purple stop).  Someone lit up like six of them all around SUB the other day and many pokemon showed up including a dratini that I just missed.

The spawns in the quad are mainly the same, with some fighting pokemon and other varieties popping up.  The pokestops near SUB are pretty interesting as they are partial water spawns as you find squirtles, horseas, psyduck, dratini, magikarp, and even gyrados has shown up.  Having lots of lures really help here to liven it up.  There does seem to be a squirtle nest here as squirtles spawn in the quad and just NE of SUB.  You can always get food, drinks, and seating inside SUB too for a break.

Update:  I played here for 2.5 hours on the morning of Sept. 7 after the students were back for university.  There were people playing and some pokestops were lured, but it was mainly busy with students getting educations.  In the 2.5 hours, the more significant pokemon I managed to bag were six squirtles, a staryu, an abra, a 1200 CP cloyster, a 800 CP omanyte, a mankey, four evee, a couple of ghastly, a lickitung, a magikarp, three meowth, and a poliwag.   A 1400 CP dewgong ran on me and I missed out on another lickitung and an omanyte from what some other players said.  So there is plenty of pokemon here as I caught over a hundred without being at active lures most of the time.  I also managed to hatch a 5 km egg for an ekans.

Princes Island Park in Calgary
This is probably the best place to hunt pokemon that I have been to.  You can actually do a loop around the lagoon here for variety and there are many amenities nearby (bars / restaurants) to help keep you going.  The couple of weekend evenings I was here in August were amazing as there were 500 to 600 people playing the game (more than I have ever seen at the legislature).  There were also 5 to 6 million mosquitoes at the time to make things more interesting.

The ring of pokestops around the Princes Island lagoon.

The pokemon the place spawns are probably at least 30% water type, with staryu, slowpoke, magikarp, polywhirls, horseas, etc.  It is also a known area for dragonite, dratini, lapras, and dragonair.  I caught a dragonair and a few dratini when I was down there.  There was a very nice variety of pokemon here and there are tons of lures going when it is busy (the whole lagoon can be lured).  Walking through the park is also nice, even if it is a big loop, but the loop works better than the layout at the legislature for moving people.

Calgary also has good pokemon spots at Central Memorial Park, and SAIT where there are many pokestops on campus.  I'm sure there will be plenty of pokemon when school is back in like at the U of A.

That's all for now, so happy pokemon hunting.  May your pokedex be complete.