Hay River Reserve's arena pushed back
First Nation says lack of funding postpones project to next year
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Monday, September 26, 2016
K'ATLODEECHE FIRST NATION/HAY RIVER RESERVE
An arena will not be built on the Hay River Reserve this year.
K'atlodeeche First Nation (KFN) had been trying to get the money together to build an arena, partly because of the reconstruction project at the rec centre in Hay River.
"We've run out of time for this year," said Peter Groenen, the chief executive officer for KFN.
"We really wanted to do it this year. We were just not able to do it," he said.
"The money was the big issue. We had money for an arena but we didn't have enough."
Groenen said the First Nation required between $2.6 million and $3.1 million for the project, depending on which version of an arena it decided to build.
The CEO said the band had about $1.6 million for the project, and could probably scrape up another couple of hundred thousand dollars.
"We were using our own capital money that's allocated from the GNWT and the Small Communities Fund contributed $125,000," he said.
The support will still be available next year from the Small Communities Fund, which is a federal program administered by the GNWT.
The process has identified some other potential sources of funding, said Groenen. "So we haven't cancelled the project. We've simply postponed it."
The CEO said there was a lot of hard work over the past month or six weeks trying to get the project for this year.
"Because it would certainly be a benefit for the region because there was no arena in Hay River," he said. "We saw that as a good opportunity to build a lot of economic activity on the reserve because more people would be coming here."
In addition, he said the Town of Hay River had offered municipal employees to the First Nation for training on how to make ice, maintain the arena and establish policies.
Groenen said KFN even considered postponing some of its other projects, like the renovation of its offices, but it wasn't enough.
The CEO said part of the problem this year was that the First Nation was trying to rush funding.
The idea was to build a 110-by-250-foot arena with bleachers on a large field next to Chief Sunrise Education Centre. It would have had artificial ice.
When the idea for a covered rink originated on the reserve three years ago, it was for a much smaller building.
Groenen said the band back then was thinking of a little skating rink. However, it now thinks it would be wiser to build a rink that could be used for organized sports.
Groenen said the size of the project didn't get bigger because of what's happening in Hay River.
"But I think that certainly gave us encouragement," he said. "Because of that arena project, it really identified that there are a lot of potential users for the ice."
