WABIGOON – A small community’s busy community centre is about to get a companion facility next to it.
Construction of the pavilion, a covered skating rink that can also host farmers markets, powwows, weddings and other events in warmer months, is going fast and could be completed by spring, according to Wabigoon’s local services board.
The pavilion/rink is located near the corner of Highway 17 and Main Street, a few steps away from Wabigoon Memorial Hall.
It fills previously empty space, local services board member Drake Wetelainen said.
Funders include FedNor, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, he said.
Wetalainen said the project, which had a budget of more than $1 million, was fully funded without having to dip into services board funds.
Rink flooding for ice skating started in late November with the many participants including children who stand to benefit from the new facility, he said.
The rink will likely be ready for skating soon, depending on the weather, he added.
As former local services board chair Richard Wetelainen explains it, having a safe and reliable skating rink for the community has been a bit tricky.
At one location “it was just a nightmare trying to get volunteers to put ice on it and it didn’t work because it was sand,” he said Wednesday.
“And then some volunteers decided that they’re going to clean a spot on the lake and try that, and that became very difficult because it was dangerous,” he continued. “The kids would fall in and … that didn’t work.”
He and the board decided the solution lay in something that’s “more than just a rink,” he said.
The multi-use pavilion “was the vision of Richard Wetelainen,” board member Arlene Williams said.
Cement and signage work is still to be done, she said, but “that should be happening in the spring.”
When it’s all done by summer, she said, “we hope to have farmers markets, craft markets, the kids can rollerblade in the summer, learn to ride their bikes on the cement – just a whole host of things.”
