42 Nebraskaland • June 2025
$3.8-million cost of removing the
mill dam and building the whitewater
park. Limestone slabs salvaged from
a historic building at the Norfolk
Regional Center were used to build the
water features, line some of the banks
and for landscaping and walking paths
to the river.
It was all part of a $17-million
project that included a new vehicle
bridge across the river on 1st Street
and the removal of the portion of
East Nebraska Avenue that separated
Johnson Park from the river. The park
also was renovated and now boasts
a community festival space and
amphitheater that can host concerts,
markets and other events during the
summer, and in the winter, an ice-
skating rink. A multi-use trail follows
the river, passing beneath the 1st
Street bridge and two pedestrian
bridges cross it, providing spectators
a birds-eye view of the action on the
whitewater features below.
And with the dam removed, the
water trail now stretches from the
north to the south end of town. At
the start of the trail, the North Fork
flows beneath the branches of trees
overhanging the river, opening up after
it passes beneath Benjamin Avenue.
After flowing past ball fields and
businesses, through a few backyards
and Winter Park (where another put-
in was built) it crosses the first point
in the whitewater park, a 3-foot drop
structure that creates a wave people
can ride on surf boards or kayaks, a
feature few parks of this type have.
Six more drop structures dot the next
third of a mile.
Most of the whitewater park is in
Johnson Park, where the North Fork
spreads out into a wide, shallow pond
with a lush lawn on the north side
and a beach on the south. On either,
parents can sit back and watch their
children splash in the water. Below
the last feature, just past East Norfolk
Avenue, floaters can haul their gear up
a rock access to the parking lot and call
it a day, or grab their tubes and walk
the hike-bike trail back to the top and
do it all again.
They can also continue floating the
North Fork for nearly another mile
to the final take-out point off Bluff
Avenue on the southeastern corner
of town.
People kayak, swim and relax around the North Fork Whitewater Park in Johnson Park, located blocks from downtown Norfolk.
