Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Sep 06/02) - Plans to revitalize Chief Jim Koe Park are nearly complete following a meeting with town planners and the design team.

The Town of Inuvik's tourism co-ordinator Brian Desjardins said he met with Gibbs and Brown Landscape Architects last week to discuss their latest conceptual drawings of the new park.

"They brought two conceptual drawings of what the layout of the park would look like," Desjardins said.

The new schemes include a market place, walkways, amphitheatre, barbecues and changes to the road access.

There were two options that were presented for feedback, but Desjardins said they agreed that the first option would be the most feasible to build, with a scaled down amphitheatre.

"There is no way we're going to build an amphitheatre like that in Inuvik," he said. "Maybe in Edmonton or Calgary, but it's too rich for our blood."

"We basically cut it in half," he said. "It will have seats for about 200 or 250."

Gibbs and Brown wanted to know how much the town was willing to spend and would come back with revisions to Option 1.

"We threw some numbers around the table, but I think we can comfortably spend around $500,000," he said.

The new park will have a tourist kiosk area with local history and visitor information.

"It will just be an are to point visitors to the various attractions around town and have some history on Chief Jim Koe," he said.

Another feature will be a vendor's area for artists and crafts people.

"The market place area will be a place where local artists, craftsmen, singers and entertainers can gather together and sell their wares," he said.

In the playground area, there will also be a picnic site with a built-in natural gas-fired barbecue.

"Organizations won't have to bring in two or three barbecues to organize an event -- it will already be there," he said.

The amphitheatre stage area will be covered and will be well-lit to provide more year-round use at the park.

"We're trying to get local artists and the Great Northern Arts Festival to add some life to the park with carvings and sculptures along with a little bit of history," he said.

There will also be a sound-proofing berm or barrier to block of the noise from main street.

Desjardins said the one-way road will become a two-way cul-de-sac, where people will be able to drive in and drop the children at the school and loop around to leave the same way they came in.

Back to the drawing board

"They will make some changes to Option 1 and to the amphitheatre and I'll be scheduling a visit for them to present it to town council, the public and who ever else is interested," he said.

Once the changes have been approved, Gibbs and Brown will then go back to draw out the final plan for the park.

"I want to get this done before the end of October, because that's when the Town of Inuvik completes their budget," Desjardins said.

He said the town will also be seeking input funding from RWED and other sources.