Most "Park of the Year" titles are exactly what they sound like: a plaque, a mention at a council meeting, maybe a banner. Cheney Lake Park's win came with something more useful. When Anchorage residents voted the small East Anchorage lake into the city's top park honor for 2026, the win came bundled with a funded construction season, and by the time anyone got around to celebrating it in person, the park had already changed.
Anchorage residents chose Cheney Lake Park as the city's 2026 Park of the Year through a community vote, and Mayor Suzanne LaFrance called the annual program a way for residents to celebrate their favorite outdoor spaces. Beth Nordlund of the Anchorage Park Foundation, which now runs the honor for a fourth year, put it more personally: neighbors feel strongly about their own parks, for their own reasons. Cheney Lake's reason turned out to be a stocked neighborhood lake most people already used before they thought of it as anything special.
A Painting First, Then a Construction Crew
The win was announced with a commissioned painting rather than a plaque. Artist Sarah Glasser created a piece honoring the park that features people fishing, a dog, and a red-necked grebe, and residents near Cheney Lake were offered merchandise featuring the artwork. Glasser said the project let her celebrate something she considers Anchorage's best quality: how much backyard access to trails and green space the city gives its residents.
The honor came with more than art. City officials said at the announcement that Cheney Lake had several projects planned for the summer, including shoreline restoration and a youth employment program, funded in part through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. That funding is the part of the story easy to miss if you only see the finished trail. The title didn't just recognize a park people liked. It paid for the repairs that park actually needed.
What the Summer Actually Bought
Anchorage's Youth Employment in Parks program, run through the Anchorage Park Foundation, spent the following months doing the physical work that funding made possible. When the Anchorage news outlet Your Alaska Link first visited the site in June, crews were still spreading gravel over trail sections that had turned to mud. By the time the project wrapped, the crew had completed:
- About half a mile of regraded trail, a meaningful stretch of the park's full 1.2-mile loop
- 500 feet of restored shoreline along the lake's edge
- Roughly 1,000 native plants installed to hold soil and rebuild habitat
- New fencing to protect that young vegetation while it takes root
None of that shows up in a drive-by. It shows up when you're the person who no longer sinks a boot into the mud on the north side of the loop, or the one who notices the shoreline isn't sliding into the water the way it used to.
The Celebration Came After the Work, Not Before
The Anchorage Park Foundation marked the finished project with an on-site celebration at Cheney Lake on August 13, months after the title itself had already been announced. Instead of another round of speeches, the event included fishing with the National Park Service, a guided bird walk, and a chance to see the completed trail and shoreline work up close.
"Parks and trails are what connect us all to each other and to nature," said Michelle LeBeau of the Anchorage Park Foundation at the celebration. "It feels good to be out here and enjoying the park with lots of different neighbors and community members."
That's a fair description of what Cheney Lake actually offers. It was never trying to be a destination park. It was trying to be a good neighborhood one, and this year the funding and the follow-through finally lined up.
Built From a Gravel Pit, Not a Postcard
Part of why Cheney Lake reads as modest instead of scenic is that it started as infrastructure, not scenery. Until 1972, the site was a gravel extraction pit. It became a man-made lake only after that use ended, and the state added funding in 1975 to purchase more land for the park, with additional support from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to help build trails and landscape the area. The lake is named for Roy Cheney, who came to Alaska in 1942.
That history explains a lot about how the park functions today. It isn't a preserved natural feature. It's a rebuilt one, and this summer's work is really a continuation of the same project that started more than 50 years ago: taking a functional, human-made space and making it work better for the people and wildlife that use it. Lauren Cusimano of Audubon Alaska, who lives nearby, described Cheney Lake earlier this year as "more or less like a neighborhood lake" rather than a wilderness destination. That's not a knock. It's exactly why the repairs mattered enough to build a celebration around.
Cheney Lake's New Job: Bird Habitat
The same qualities that make Cheney Lake feel unremarkable to drive past have made it a legitimate stop for birders. The park is now one of 35 locations on the newly launched Anchorage Birding Trail, alongside spots like Hillside Park, and its addition arrived alongside Audubon Alaska's first update to the area's bird checklist since 2014.
Nearly 300 bird species have been recorded across Anchorage, and Cheney Lake pulls in a solid share of that traffic. Cusimano called it a "sleeper site," pointing to the red-necked grebes, waterfowl, bald eagles, ravens, and songbirds that pass through regularly, the same grebe species that made it onto Sarah Glasser's commemorative painting. The shoreline restoration finished this summer isn't just cosmetic for that population. Bare, compacted shoreline is harder for nesting birds to use than shoreline with native vegetation and some buffer from foot traffic, which is exactly what the new plantings and fencing are meant to provide.
What's Left for Fall
The work isn't finished. Additional improvements are planned for this fall, including a new viewing platform and signage aimed at protecting the shoreline and the migratory bird habitat that helped earn the park its spot on the birding trail. If the pattern from this year holds, expect the same approach: practical, small in scope, and easy to miss unless you're the one walking the loop regularly.
That's the real story behind Cheney Lake's 2026 title. It isn't a story about a park getting flashier. It's a story about what a community vote can actually buy when the funding follows the honor: a resurfaced trail, a rebuilt shoreline, a thousand new plants, and a neighborhood lake that finally has the maintenance to match how much its neighbors already used it.
If you're the kind of person who already has an opinion about which loop trail near your house needs a little more gravel, you already understand the appeal of a neighborhood like this one. The team at Calling Alaska Home spends as much time walking these trails and talking to neighbors as we do talking real estate, and we're always glad to swap notes on what's changing in East Anchorage, whether you're thinking about a move or just curious what your own park might be up for next year. Reach out anytime, or get your free home valuation if you're wondering what all this neighborhood momentum means for your own property.
