WESTLOCK – After years of talk and safety testing, the Whissellville Pond, one of Westlock’s “well-loved and well-used outdoor amenities” will soon be home to a pair of skating rinks.
At the Jan. 9 town council meeting, community service director Gerry Murphy told councillors that they’re getting close to being able to open up two new rinks on the northern side of the storm water pond — in a follow-up interview, he said they’ve circled Family Day, Feb. 20, as the “official opening date”, although he admitted they’ll probably be ready sooner as they’d rather “under promise and over delivery.”
Murphy said one rink will be similar in size to the Eastglen Outdoor Skating Rink, minus the boards, while just south of that will be a “loose, kidney-shaped” skating track. Although they won’t be providing any nets initially, sticks and pucks will be allowed on the most-northern rink, while the other will be just for skating.
“After this Friday (Jan. 13) when we do another assessment and ensure we’re safe to go, we’ll start by moving some snow and creating the surface,” said Murphy Jan. 10. “The intent is to create a Norman Rockwell painting out there. It’s a beautiful park and we really want to activate it in the wintertime. Skating on a pond will bring back a lot of good memories of childhood for us older folks, so we’re really looking forward to creating something special for the residents of Westlock for sure.”
Murphy said talk of carving out a rink on the pond began three winters ago and they’ve taken their time to ensure it’ll be safe not only for the public, but the staff who will maintain it — in January 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 indoor gathering restrictions, the town opened an additional outdoor rink just north of the Rotary Spirit Centre, while another opened on the east side of R.F. Staples School.
Murphy said that for the past couple of winters they’ve been measuring the thickness of the ice at the pond, as well as the water level, and they’ve also drilled holes to keep an eye on the pressure from below “which seems to be constant and has been for the last couple of years.”
He said they’ve selected the north side as it has good “upflow” and allows them to stay away from the southern end where the water flows in and out of the pond. He also said the upward pressure is so good that when they do flood the rink, all they’ll need to do is drill a hole and the water will “flow uniformly and create a pristine surface.”
“We’ll try to make it as perfect as we can,” he added.
As for the future, Murphy said they wanted to “create the amenity” and then see if the town’s events committee will create something that will use it. He recalled his time in Cochrane where a similar facility plays host to the Kimmett Cup, a three-on-three pond hockey tourney played every January in memory of Lindsay Kimmett who was killed by a drunk driver.
“That would be the ultimate for me, to see it used for something similar. But Step 1, was to ensure that it is suitable for what we want to use it for and it appears to be,” he continued. “And Step 2 is to build it and that’s where we are right now.”
