Yellowknife (May 14/04) - The territorial government wants to get out of the lifeguard business, and that will leave Long Lake beach unsupervised this summer.

Phil Lee, North Slave superintendent for Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, said liability is the main reason why the department decided to no longer contracts out lifeguards from the City of Yellowknife for Fred Henne Park.

"The city has coverage, we don't," said Lee.

"So even if we contracted them to supply lifeguards we would still have the liability issue attached to it if we had an incident. We're better off to say, 'swim at your own risk. This is an unsupervised beach.'"

The city, which transferred authority over the beach to the territorial government several years ago, had an agreement with RWED to provide the lifeguards.

The department spent about $23,000 a year for lifeguards at Fred Henne.

First time in more than a decade

But last year, the beach went without lifeguards for the first time in more than a decade because the city said it couldn't find enough lifeguards to staff it.

Later that summer, three children nearly drowned after venturing into deeper water.

Despite the close call, Lee said it's parents not his department, who are ultimately responsible for the safety of their children.

"(Long Lake) is well used," said Lee.

"Quite often you see young kids running around unsupervised so I think the public just has to be a little more aware that it's unsupervised."

He said RWED's previous arrangement with the city wasn't a happy one. As a consequence, it may eventually seek to have authority over the beach transferred back into city hands.

"It's not a very palatable arrangement. I'm not particularly happy," said Lee.

"We have no control over the quality of lifeguards. Even when we did have lifeguards, we didn't set the schedule. It was all handled by the city. That's not an acceptable arrangement."

Lee said the NWT isn't the only jurisdiction that won't provide lifeguards for territorial or provincial parks. Until this year, Fred Henne had the only beach inside a territorial park that employed lifeguards.

Jeff Arthurs, the NWT and Alberta sport co-ordinator for the Lifesaving Society -- a 100-year-old Canadian organization that promotes water safety -- said he has no problems with a government deciding to scrap lifeguard services as long as the public is warned that the beach is not supervised.

"As long as there is some kind of public messaging and people are being safe then that's what we're after," said Arthurs.

Lifeguard towers have been removed from the beach at Fred Henne and eight "swim at your own risk" signs erected in their place.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said the city has lifeguards to staff the beach and will give them work at Ruth Inch Memorial Pool.

As for RWED's desire to transfer control over the beach back to the city, he said the city's open to the idea.

"It's not beyond the realm of possibility," said Van Tighem. "All of that is subject to, at this point, ongoing informal discussion."

Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay said Yellowknife MLAs are drafting a letter to RWED Minister Brendan Bell that asks for additional money to pay for lifeguards at Long Lake.

He agreed that responsibility for the beach should be transferred back to the city, but doesn't want to see another year go by without lifeguards there.

He saw an inmate from the Yellowknife Correctional Centre drown a few hundred metres down from the beach while working for the park a few years ago, and doesn't want to see a tragedy repeated. "It could prove to be a bad thing not to have lifeguards there, that's for sure," said Ramsay.

-- with files from Daniel T'seleie