Surfing
Surfing is a surface water sport in which the wave rider, referred to as a surfer, rides on the forward or deep face of a moving wave, which carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitable for surfing are found in the ocean, but can be found in lakes or rivers in the form of a standing wave or tidal bore. However, surfers can utilize artificial waves such as those from boat wakes and the waves created in artificial wave pools; the term surfing refers to the act of riding a wave, regardless of whether the wave is ridden with a board or without a board, regardless of the stance used. The native peoples of the Pacific, for instance, surfed waves on alaia and other such craft, did so on their belly and knees; the modern-day definition of surfing, most refers to a surfer riding a wave standing up on a surfboard. Another prominent form of surfing is body boarding, when a surfer rides a wave on a bodyboard, either lying on their belly, drop knee, or sometimes standing up on a body board. Other types of surfing include knee boarding, surf matting, using foils.
Body surfing, where the wave is surfed without a board, using the surfer's own body to catch and ride the wave, is common and is considered by some to be the purest form of surfing. Three major subdivisions within stand-up surfing are stand-up paddling, long boarding and short boarding with several major differences including the board design and length, the riding style, the kind of wave, ridden. In tow-in surfing, a motorized water vehicle, such as a personal watercraft, tows the surfer into the wave front, helping the surfer match a large wave's speed, a higher speed than a self-propelled surfer can produce. Surfing-related sports such as paddle boarding and sea kayaking do not require waves, other derivative sports such as kite surfing and windsurfing rely on wind for power, yet all of these platforms may be used to ride waves. With the use of V-drive boats, Wakesurfing, in which one surfs on the wake of a boat, has emerged; the Guinness Book of World Records recognized a 78 foot wave ride by Garrett McNamara at Nazaré, Portugal as the largest wave surfed.
For hundreds of years, surfing was a central part of ancient Polynesian culture. Surfing may have first been observed by British explorers at Tahiti in 1767. Samuel Wallis and the crew members of HMS Dolphin who were the first Britons to visit the island in June of that year. Another candidate is the botanist Joseph Banks being part of the first voyage of James Cook on HMS Endeavour, who arrived on Tahiti on 10 April 1769. Lieutenant James King was the first person to write about the art of surfing on Hawaii when he was completing the journals of Captain James Cook upon Cook's death in 1779; when Mark Twain visited Hawaii in 1866 he wrote, In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing. References to surf riding on planks and single canoe hulls are verified for pre-contact Samoa, where surfing was called fa'ase'e or se'egalu, Tonga, far pre-dating the practice of surfing by Hawaiians and eastern Polynesians by over a thousand years.
In July 1885, three teenage Hawaiian princes took a break from their boarding school, St. Mathew’s Hall in San Mateo, came to cool off in Santa Cruz, California. There, David Kawānanakoa, Edward Keliʻiahonui and Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole surfed the mouth of the San Lorenzo River on custom-shaped redwood boards, according to surf historians Kim Stoner and Geoff Dunn. George Freeth is credited as being the "Father of Modern Surfing", he is thought to have been the first modern surfer. In 1907, the eclectic interests of the land baron Henry E. Huntington brought the ancient art of surfing to the California coast. While on vacation, Huntington had seen Hawaiian boys surfing the island waves. Looking for a way to entice visitors to the area of Redondo Beach, where he had invested in real estate, he hired a young Hawaiian to ride surfboards. George Freeth decided to revive the art of surfing, but had little success with the huge 16-foot hardwood boards that were popular at that time; when he cut them in half to make them more manageable, he created the original "Long board", which made him the talk of the islands.
To the delight of visitors, Freeth exhibited his surfing skills twice a day in front of the Hotel Redondo. Another native Hawaiian, Duke Kahanamoku, spread surfing to both the U. S. and Australia, riding the waves after displaying the swimming prowess that won him Olympic gold medals in 1912 and 1920. In 1975, professional contests started; that year Margo Oberg became the first female professional surfer. Swell is generated when the wind blows over a large area of open water, called the wind's fetch; the size of a swell is determined by the strength of the wind and the length of its fetch and duration. Because of this, surf tends to be larger and more prevalent on coastlines exposed to large expanses of ocean traversed by intense low pressure systems. Local wind conditions affect wave quality since the surface of a wave can become choppy in blustery conditions. Ideal conditions include a light to moderate "offshore" wind, because it blows into the front of the wave, making it a "barrel" or "tube" wave.
Waves are Left Right Handed depending upon the breaking formation of the wave. Waves are recognized by the surfaces over which they break. For example, there are Reef breaks and Point breaks; the most important influence on
North America
North America is a continent within the Northern Hemisphere and all within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16.5% of the earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, the fourth by population after Asia and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population, if nearby islands are included. North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge 40,000 to 17,000 years ago; the so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago. The Classic stage spans the 6th to 13th centuries.
The Pre-Columbian era ended in 1492, the transatlantic migrations—the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery and the Early Modern period. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants. Owing to the European colonization of the Americas, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, their culture reflects Western traditions; the Americas are accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a world map, in which he placed the word "America" on the continent of South America, in the middle of what is today Brazil, he explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio:... ab Americo inventore... quasi Americi terram sive Americam.
For Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespucci's name, but in its feminine form "America", following the examples of "Europa", "Asia" and "Africa". Other mapmakers extended the name America to the northern continent, In 1538, Gerard Mercator used America on his map of the world for all the Western Hemisphere; some argue that because the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries, the derivation from "Amerigo Vespucci" could be put in question. In 1874, Thomas Belt proposed a derivation from the Amerrique mountains of Central America. Marcou corresponded with Augustus Le Plongeon, who wrote: "The name AMERICA or AMERRIQUE in the Mayan language means, a country of perpetually strong wind, or the Land of the Wind, and... the can mean... a spirit that breathes, life itself." The United Nations formally recognizes "North America" as comprising three areas: Northern America, Central America, The Caribbean.
This has been formally defined by the UN Statistics Division. The term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with context. In Canadian English, North America refers to the land mass as a whole consisting of Mexico, the United States, Canada, although it is ambiguous which other countries are included, is defined by context. In the United States of America, usage of the term may refer only to Canada and the US, sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands. In France, Portugal, Romania and the countries of Latin America, the cognates of North America designate a subcontinent of the Americas comprising Canada, the United States, Mexico, Greenland, Saint Pierre et Miquelon, Bermuda. North America has been referred to by other names. Spanish North America was referred to as Northern America, this was the first official name given to Mexico. Geographically the North American continent has many subregions; these include cultural and geographic regions. Economic regions included those formed by trade blocs, such as the North American Trade Agreement bloc and Central American Trade Agreement.
Linguistically and culturally, the continent could be divided into Latin America. Anglo-America includes most of Northern America and Caribbean islands with English-speaking populations; the southern North American continent is composed of two regions. These are the Caribbean; the north of the continent maintains recognized regions as well. In contrast to the common definition of "North America", which encompasses the whole continent, the term "North America" is sometimes used to refer only to Mexico, the United States, Greenland; the term Northern America refers to the northern-most countries and territories of North America: the United States, Bermuda, St. Pierre and Miquelon and Greenland. Although the term does not refer to a unifie
Flowriding
Flowriding is a late-20th century alternative boardsport incorporating elements of surfing, skateboarding, skimboarding and wakeboarding. Flowriders ride on artificial waves that are technically called "sheet waves". Powerful pumps project a three-inch layer of water at speeds ranging from 20 MPH to 30 MPH; the water flows over surfaces engineered to replicate the shape of ocean waves. Sheet waves are stationary waves, in that the wave does not move forward, the movement is derived from water flowing over a stationary surface. Flowriders get their speed from the energy of the water flowing at them, can perform basic to sophisticated turns and tricks within a small area. Though there are a number of different types of structures used for flowriding, the two which are recognized at a competitive level are the WhiteWater West Single and Double FlowRiders and the WhiteWater West FlowBarrel; the sports has two main divisions, based on the type of board: the bodyboard. The flowboard is known as the'stand-up board' in flowriding.
There are three mainstream board brands: Outlaw, ShuvIt and Carve. These boards differ in shape, materials and the angle at which the board curves, they take a similar appearance to that of a wakeboard and can be further categorized into strapped and strapless boards. Boards with footstraps are used only on the FlowBarrel, but strapless boards are used on both the FlowRider and FlowBarrel. Flowboards range in length from: 910 millimeters to 1070 millimeters, they weigh between 1.4 kilograms and 2.8 kilograms Many of the tricks incorporated in flowriding are inspired by skateboarding and wakeboarding. Riders are able to perform various maneuvers varying in difficulty such as carving, rotations varying in degree, pop-shuvits and variations, kick-flips, foot-plant and fast-plant variations, many more. Bodyboarders ride standard bodyboards in the kneeling, or drop-knee position; each position forms the basis for its own set of tricks. In most competitions, bodyboarders are required to do tricks in both kneeling positions.
There are three brands most would look to for bodyboards: Flowrider, Custom X and World Class Bodyboards The Flowboarding League of the World, run by WhiteWater West Inc, hosts flowboarding competitions. They host the North American Flow Tour, Flow Tour Asia, Flow Tour Europe, as well as the World Flowboarding Championship, with occasional Special Events as well. There are two main categories of competitions in the United States, The North American Flow Tour Prime Events as well as Flow Series events. Both hold contests at different venues around the country. Competitors compete in divisions by age and gender and are given three 30-45 second judged runs and the best two are counted. Past reputable judges have included Sean Silveira, JP O'Brien, Eric Silverman, Chuck Wright, Theo Koby, Nick Sanchez, Adam Muller, Brad Spencer as well as many others. There are two main categories of competitions in the United Kingdom, European Flow Tour and UK Flow Tour. Wave House website Wave Loch website Flowboarders website Flowrider, Inc. website
Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort called Walt Disney World and Disney World, is an entertainment complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, in the United States, near the cities Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, the resort is owned and operated by Disney Parks and Products, a division of The Walt Disney Company, it was first operated by Walt Disney World Company. The property, which covers nearly 25,000 acres, only half of, used, comprises four theme parks, two water parks, twenty-seven themed resort hotels, nine non-Disney hotels, several golf courses, a camping resort, other entertainment venues, including the outdoor shopping center Disney Springs. Designed to supplement Disneyland, in Anaheim, which had opened in 1955, the complex was developed by Walt Disney in the 1960s. "The Florida Project", as it was known, was intended to present a distinct vision with its own diverse set of attractions. Walt Disney's original plans called for the inclusion of an "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow", a planned community intended to serve as a test bed for new city-living innovations.
Walt Disney died on December 1966, during construction of the complex. Without him spearheading the construction, the company built a resort similar to Disneyland, abandoning the experimental concepts for a planned community. Magic Kingdom was the first theme park to open in the complex, in 1971, followed by Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios, Disney's Animal Kingdom. Today, Walt Disney World is the most visited vacation resort in the world, with average annual attendance of more than 52 million; the resort is the flagship destination of Disney's worldwide corporate enterprise and has become a popular staple in American culture. In 1959, Walt Disney Productions began looking for land to house a second resort to supplement Disneyland in Anaheim, which had opened in 1955. Market surveys at the time revealed that only 5% of Disneyland's visitors came from east of the Mississippi River, where 75% of the population of the United States lived. Additionally, Walt Disney disliked the businesses that had sprung up around Disneyland and wanted more control over a larger area of land in the next project.
Walt Disney flew over a potential site in Orlando, Florida – one of many – in November 1963. After witnessing the well-developed network of roads and taking the planned construction of both Interstate 4 and Florida's Turnpike into account, with McCoy Air Force Base to the east, Disney selected a centrally-located site near Bay Lake. To avoid a burst of land speculation, Walt Disney World Company used various dummy corporations to acquire 30,500 acres of land. In May 1965, some of these major land transactions were recorded a few miles southwest of Orlando in Osceola County. In addition, two large tracts totaling $1.5 million were sold, smaller tracts of flatlands and cattle pastures were purchased by exotically-named companies such as the "Ayefour Corporation", "Latin-American Development and Management Corporation" and the "Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation". Some are now memorialized on a window above Main Street, U. S. A. in Magic Kingdom. The smaller parcels of land acquired were called "outs".
They were 5-acre lots sold to investors. Most of the owners in the 1960s were happy to get rid of the land, swamp at the time. Another issue was the mineral rights to the land. Without the transfer of these rights, Tufts could come in at any time and demand the removal of buildings to obtain minerals. Disney's team negotiated a deal with Tufts to buy the mineral rights for $15,000. Working in secrecy, real estate agents unaware of their client's identity began making offers to landowners in April 1964 in parts of southwest Orange and northwest Osceola counties; the agents were careful not to reveal the extent of their intentions, they were able to negotiate numerous land contracts with some including large tracts of land for as little as $100 an acre. With the understanding that the recording of the first deeds would trigger intense public scrutiny, Disney delayed the filing of paperwork until a large portion of the land was under contract. Early rumors and speculation about the land purchases assumed possible development by NASA in support of the nearby Kennedy Space Center, as well as references to other famous investors such as Ford, the Rockefellers, Howard Hughes.
An Orlando Sentinel news article published weeks on May 20, 1965, acknowledged a popular rumor that Disney was building an "East Coast" version of Disneyland. However, the publication denied its accuracy based on an earlier interview with Disney at Kennedy Space Center, in which he claimed a $50 million investment was in the works for Disneyland, that he had no interest in building a new park. In October 1965, editor Emily Bavar from the Sentinel visited Disneyland during the park's 10th-anniversary celebration. In an interview with Disney, she asked him if he was behind recent land purchases in Central Florida, his reaction, combined with other research obtained during her Anaheim visit, led Bavar to author a story on October 21, 1965, where she predicted that Disney was building a second theme park in Florida. Three days after gathering more information from various sources, the Sentinel published another article headlined, "We Say:'Mystery Industry' Is Disney". Walt Disney had planned to publicly reveal Disney World on November 15, 1965, but in light of the Sentinel story, Disney asked
Portugal
Portugal the Portuguese Republic, is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost sovereign state of mainland Europe, being bordered to the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and east by Spain, its territory includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments. Portugal is the oldest state on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest in Europe, its territory having been continuously settled and fought over since prehistoric times; the pre-Celtic people, Celts and Romans were followed by the invasions of the Visigoths and Suebi Germanic peoples. Portugal as a country was established during the Christian Reconquista against the Moors who had invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 AD. Founded in 868, the County of Portugal gained prominence after the Battle of São Mamede in 1128; the Kingdom of Portugal was proclaimed following the Battle of Ourique in 1139, independence from León was recognised by the Treaty of Zamora in 1143.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal established the first global empire, becoming one of the world's major economic and military powers. During this period, today referred to as the Age of Discovery, Portuguese explorers pioneered maritime exploration, notably under royal patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator and King John II, with such notable voyages as Bartolomeu Dias' sailing beyond the Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India and the European discovery of Brazil. During this time Portugal monopolized the spice trade, divided the world into hemispheres of dominion with Castille, the empire expanded with military campaigns in Asia. However, events such as the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the country's occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, the independence of Brazil, a late industrialization compared to other European powers, erased to a great extent Portugal's prior opulence. After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established being superseded by the Estado Novo right-wing authoritarian regime.
Democracy was restored after the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Shortly after, independence was granted to all its overseas territories; the handover of Macau to China in 1999 marked the end of what can be considered the longest-lived colonial empire. Portugal has left a profound cultural and architectural influence across the globe, a legacy of around 250 million Portuguese speakers, many Portuguese-based creoles, it is a developed country with a high-income advanced economy and high living standards. Additionally, it is placed in rankings of moral freedom, democracy, press freedom, social progress, LGBT rights. A member of the United Nations and the European Union, Portugal was one of the founding members of NATO, the eurozone, the OECD, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries; the word Portugal derives from the Roman-Celtic place name Portus Cale. Portus, the Latin word for port or harbour, Cala or Cailleach was the name of a Celtic goddess – in Scotland she is known as Beira – and the name of an early settlement located at the mouth of the Douro River which flows into the Atlantic Ocean in the north of what is now Portugal.
At the time the land of a specific people was named after its deity. Those names are the origins of the - gal in Galicia. Incidentally, the meaning of Cale or Calle is a derivation of the Celtic word for port which would confirm old links to pre-Roman, Celtic languages which compare to today's Irish caladh or Scottish cala, both meaning port; some French scholars believe it may have come from ` Portus Gallus', the port of the Celts. Around 200 BC, the Romans took the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War, in the process conquered Cale and renamed it Portus Cale incorporating it to the province of Gaellicia with capital in Bracara Augusta. During the Middle Ages, the region around Portus Cale became known by the Suebi and Visigoths as Portucale; the name Portucale evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries, by the 9th century, that term was used extensively to refer to the region between the rivers Douro and Minho. By the 11th and 12th centuries, Portugallia or Portvgalliae was referred to as Portugal.
The early history of Portugal is shared with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula located in South Western Europe. The name of Portugal derives from the joined Romano-Celtic name Portus Cale; the region was settled by Pre-Celts and Celts, giving origin to peoples like the Gallaeci, Lusitanians and Cynetes, visited by Phoenicians, Ancient Greeks and Carthaginians, incorporated in the Roman Republic dominions as Lusitania and part of Gallaecia, after 45 BC until 298 AD. The region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by Neanderthals and by Homo sapiens, who roamed the border-less region of the northern Iberian peninsula; these were subsistence societies that, although they did not establish prosperous settlements, did form organized societies. Neolithic Portugal experimented with domestication of herding animals, the raising of some cereal crops and fluvial or marine fishing, it is believed by some scholars that early in the first millennium BC, several waves of Celts invaded Portugal from Central Europe and inter-married with the local populations, forming differe
Sauna
A sauna, or sudatory, is a small room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these facilities. The steam and high heat make the bathers perspire. Infrared therapy is referred to as a type of sauna, but according to the Finnish sauna organizations, infrared is not a sauna. Borrowed from the early Proto-Germanic *stakna- whose descendants include English stack, the word sauna is an ancient Finnish word referring to the traditional Finnish bath and to the bathhouse itself. In Finnic languages other than Finnish and Estonian and cognates do not mean a building or space built for bathing, it can mean a small cabin or cottage, such as a cabin for a fisherman. The sauna known in the western world today originates from Northern Europe. In Finland, there are built-in saunas in every house; the oldest known saunas in Finland were made from pits dug in a slope in the ground and used as dwellings in winter. The sauna featured a fireplace.
Water was thrown on the hot stones to give a sensation of increased heat. This would raise the apparent temperature so high; the first Finnish saunas are what nowadays are called savusaunas. These differed from present-day saunas in that they were heated by heating a pile of rocks called kiuas by burning large amounts of wood about 6 to 8 hours, letting the smoke out before enjoying the löyly, or sauna heat. A properly heated "savusauna" gives heat up to 12 hours. Saunas were common all over Europe during the Middle Ages. Due to the spread of syphilis and subsequent scare of the disease in the 1500s, the sauna culture died out on most of the continent. Finland was a notable exception to this due to the epidemic not taking a strong hold in the area, a key reason why the sauna culture is nowadays perceived as Finnish; as a result of the Industrial Revolution, the sauna evolved to use a metal woodstove, or kiuas, with a chimney. Air temperatures averaged around 75–100 °C but sometimes exceeded 110 °C in a traditional Finnish sauna.
When the Finns migrated to other areas of the globe they brought their sauna designs and traditions with them. This led to further evolution of the sauna, including the electric sauna stove, introduced in 1938 by Metos Ltd in Vaasa. Although the culture of sauna nowadays is more or less related to Finnish culture, the evolution of sauna happened around the same time both in Finland and the Baltic countries sharing the same meaning and importance of sauna in daily life, shared still to this day; the Sauna became popular in Scandinavia and the German speaking regions of Europe after the Second World War. German soldiers had got to know the Finnish saunas during their fight against the Soviet Union on the Soviet-Finnish front of WWII, where they fought on the same side. Finnish hygiene depended so on saunas, that they had built saunas not only in mobile tents but in bunkers. After the war, the German soldiers brought the habit back to Germany and Austria, where it became popular in the second half of the 20th century.
The German sauna culture became popular in neighbouring countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Archaeological sites in Greenland and Newfoundland have uncovered structures similar to traditional Scandinavian farm saunas, some with bathing platforms and "enormous quantities of badly scorched stones"; the traditional Korean sauna, called the hanjeungmak, is a domed structure constructed of stone, first mentioned in the Sejong Sillok of the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty in the 15th century. Supported by Sejong the Great, the hanjeungmak was touted for its health benefits and used to treat illnesses. In the early 15th century, Buddhist monks maintained hanjeungmak clinics, called hanjeungso, to treat sick poor people. Korean sauna culture and kiln saunas are still popular today, Korean saunas are ubiquitous. Under many circumstances, temperatures approaching and exceeding 100 °C would be intolerable and fatal if exposed to long periods of time. Saunas overcome this problem by controlling the humidity.
The hottest Finnish saunas have low humidity levels in which steam is generated by pouring water on the hot stones. This allows air temperatures that could boil water to be tolerated and enjoyed for longer periods of time. Steam baths, such as the Turkish bath, where the humidity approaches 100%, will be set to a much lower temperature of around 40 °C to compensate; the "wet heat" would cause scalding. In a typical Finnish sauna, the temperature of the air, the room and the benches is above the dew point when water is thrown on the hot stones and vaporized. Thus, they remain dry. In contrast, the sauna bathers are at about 38 °C, below the dew point, so that water is condensed on the bathers' skin; this process makes the steam feel hot. Finer control over the temperature experienced can be achieved by choosing a higher level bench for those wishing a hotter experience or a lower level bench for a more moderate temperature. A good sauna has a small temperature gradient between the various seating levels.
Doors need to be kept closed and used to maintain the temperature inside. Some North American, Western European, Japanese and South African public sport centres and gyms include sauna facilities, they may be present at public and private swimming pool
West Edmonton Mall
West Edmonton Mall, located in Edmonton, Canada, is the largest shopping mall in North America, followed by King of Prussia Mall, the 23rd largest in the world by gross leasable area. It was the world's largest mall until 2004; the mall was founded by the Ghermezian brothers, who emigrated from Iran in 1959. Its anchors are Hudson's Bay, London Drugs, La Maison Simons, The Brick, Winners/HomeSense. West Edmonton Mall covers a gross area of about 490,000 m2. There are over 800 stores and services including nine attractions, two hotels and over 100 dining venues in the complex, parking for more than 20,000 vehicles. More than 24,000 people are employed at the property; the mall receives about 32 million visitors per year. The mall was valued at $926 million in January 2007, in 2016, for tax purposes, it was valued at $1.3034 billion, making it the most valuable property in Edmonton. West Edmonton Mall first opened its doors to the public on 15 September 1981; the mall was developed in four phases, completed in 1981, 1983, 1985 and 1999.
It was the largest indoor shopping centre in the world until 2004, was named such in the Guinness Book of Records. The four phases of construction are used in a colour-coded system as a guideline for finding stores and attractions; the Mindbender indoor roller coaster had a fatal accident on 14 June 1986 when one of the rear cars derailed from the track and slammed into a nearby concrete pillar. Three people died and one was injured in the accident. On 11 July 2004, the mall suffered millions of dollars in damage when a severe storm of hail and rain caused roofs to fail and drains to overflow; the Ice Palace and surrounding sections were the most damaged, the World Waterpark had a sewage overflow. The damage was promptly repaired. Sears Canada Target Canada Zellers Red's Woodward's 2nd Bay Store HMV Eatons Past and current West Edmonton Mall world records include. - WEM's parking lot Most bungee jumps in 24 hours record while indoors was set by Peter Charney, on 6–7 November 2007 at the World Waterpark, completing 225 jumps.
Galaxyland was known as "Fantasyland. It is an indoor amusement park located on the north side of the mall, it is the second-largest indoor amusement park in the world, behind Ferrari World, features 24 rides and attractions. There are 8 beginner rides, 9 intermediate rides, 7 thrill rides, the triple loop Mindbender roller coaster; the Mindbender is the world's largest indoor triple loop roller coaster. The latest attraction in Galaxyland, which opened in 2018, named HAVOC; the Drop of Doom was shut down in the early 2000s. The tower area was replaced shortly after by a more modern launch ride, the Space Shot, a S&S Double Shot Tower Ride; the World Waterpark is the world's second largest indoor waterpark, built in 1985, with a size of 20,903 square metres. The park has the world's largest indoor wave pool; the highest slides in the park are the Cyclone, which are each 25.3 metres high. The wavepool has six wave bays, each with two panels with a total of 1,500 horsepower generating waves up to two metres high.
Ice Palace is a scaled down version of a National Hockey League regulation-sized ice rink located in the centre of the mall. The Edmonton Oilers practised at the Ice Palace during the 1980s; the Oilers' contract for using the rink has since expired. The rink is used for various hockey and other sporting tournaments. In 2015, the Ice Palace was renamed Mayfield Toyota Ice Palace after the mall sold the naming rights to a local auto dealership. During special events, such as Remembrance Day, the ice rink is covered with fabric for a ceremony to be held on it. In 2017, West Edmonton Mall announced that the Mayfield Toyota Ice Palace will get a $3 million renovation. Due to this, it was closed for the summer and reopened in December 2017. Professor WEM's Adventure Golf is an 18-hole miniature golf course; the miniature golf course was known as Pebble Beach Mini Golf, was designed to be a mini golf version of Pebble Beach Golf Links. The course was given the Professor WEM theme in the mid-1990s. Fantasyland Hotel, located within the mall.
An indoor shooting range Large-scale replica of the Santa María, one of the ships sailed by Christopher Columbus in 1492 to San Salvador Island. The deck can be booked for private functions. 24-hour Gym, Crunch Fitness Dinner Theatre: Jubilations Dinner The
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