Spokane, WA

Manito Park on Spokane’s South Hill is a wonderful place to visit year round. Manito Park is located between 17^th and 25^th Avenues and Grand and Bernard. The park has activities year round, including a great plant sale in late spring/early summer. Manito Park was originally named Montrose Park but was renamed to Manito Park in 1903. Manito means “Spirit of Nature” in the Algonquin Native American Tribe dialect.

Manito Park boasts a beautiful rose garden, perennial garden and Duncan Garden in the spring and summer along with a wonderfully detailed Japanese Garden throughout the year.

My family enjoys spending time during the spring and summer at Manito, but this year we decided to head out on a nice fall weekend. The weather was perfect, no rain, no wind and few clouds in the sky. The sun was shining through the orange and brown leaves making the park sparkle and come to life.

My 14 month old son enjoys feeding the ducks at the duck pond. Today however, he was eating as much bread as he was throwing. Everything was going good until someone across the pond had better tasting bread then we had and the ducks and geese were off. It did not take long for my son to find something else to play with to distract him from the missing ducks.

We went to Manito Park to get some nice fall family photos. We were not the only ones with this idea as the parking lot was full and the park was full of families trying to pose their children for that “perfect” picture. I have learned with a walking toddler now that posing is not a term he knows the meaning of, so most of our pictures are action shots with him climbing the hills, hiding behind the trees and playing in the leaves. However, we managed to take some beautiful photographs of him and our family.

There are still a few weekends left in the fall and if you have not taken some family photos in awhile, Manito Park is a beautiful setting. Be sure to take along your extra bread and stop and feed the ducks and geese.

If you do not make it to Manito Park this fall, don’t miss the sledding once the snow flies.

We’d love to hear from you! Do you like Manito Park? Are there other areas of the park we should know about? Please feel free to comment here or email us today!