Nickel Belt News Volume Volume 58 60 Number • Issue 7 11
Friday, March 14, 16, 2020 2018 Friday,February
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One year dry and counting for Thompson’s Norplex pool
BY IAN GRAHAM
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
The city told the Nickel Belt News Feb. 6 that Mayor Colleen Smook has been bringing up the ICIP grant with provincial ministers at every opportunity and that the pool manager has submitted 10 other grant applications, with 10 more in progress. The pool fundraising subcommittee will be launching their campaign during Winterfest Feb. 2123, including an announcement of the first large donation. A request for proposals for the design of a new facility is currently receiving legal scrutiny and should be finalized by early March. A wish list of features the new pool should have has been developed by the pool planning subcommittee. “Depending on the funding that we’re able to receive, these features will either be implemented in full, or scaled down based on priority,” the city said. The pool committee previously said it hoped to have a new pool completed by 2022 but it can’t come soon enough for some formerly frequent pool users. Ben Sewell, an RCMP officer stationed in Thompson, delivered kayaking lessons to 350 adults and students at the pool between 2013 and 2017, receiving a national Canadian Safe Boating Award for his efforts in 2017. “A community with a population over 10,000 without a swimming pool is a have-not community,” says Sewell, who may no longer be stationed in
Book a way to preserve and pass on memories of growing up in Churchill
A year ago on Feb. 13. Thompson’s mayor and council decided to immediately and permanently shut down the Norplex Pool after an engineering review discovered serious structural problems with the changing room ceilings and the waterslide support beams, as well as electrical vulnerabilities in the change rooms and other areas, along with urgent ventilation issues. Three-hundred-andsixty-five days later, progress has been made when it comes to having a firm idea of what will replace the condemned facility, but the city doesn’t yet have the money to pay for those plans. The city has yet to hear back about a nearly $20 million grant application it made to the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP). If approved, the city would be responsible for 26 per cent of that amount. The grant application was made after consultants hired to decid whether it would be better to fix the Norplex Pool or build a new facility concluded that a new pool on the Thompson Regional Community Centre grounds was the better option, since it would only cost about $3 million more than fixing up the Norplex. The city had said during a public meeting last March that it could cost as much as $6.5 million to fix the deficiencies at the Norplex Pool.
Nickel Belt News file photo The empty Norplex Pool during a maintenance shutdown in 2016. The pool was immediately and permanently closed a year ago Feb. 13. Thompson by the time a new pool is built. Lawyer Serena Puranen, who used the pool an average of four times a week and as often as every day, said she swam 309 kilometres in 2017 and 317 the following year and battled depression when the pool closed down last year. “Nothing makes my soul complete the way gliding
through the water does,” she says. “Every time I thought of doing something else, it was a reminder I was doing that because I couldn’t swim and it made me angry. No one enjoys eating carrots when you want to be eating potato chips.” Though she wishes the pool hadn’t had to be suddenly closed forever, Puranen does think a new
pool is the right decision because the old pool was not “barrier-free” and the lack of separation between the shallow pool and the main pool meant the main pool was often closed due to foulings in the shallow portion. As part of the pool planning committee, Puranen says she is trying to make the new pool one that
can be used by the whole community. “The plans we’ve been looking at for a new pool include a large family change room with a room specifically for special needs adults and children,” she said. “We have zero entry for little kids in the shallow tank and a ramp for people with mobility issues in the deep tank.”
Shot by person on a snowmobile, Churchill man spends at least a day walking back to town
Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director Gisele deMeulles has written a book about her experiences growing up, mostly in Churchill. BY IAN GRAHAM
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
Though she’s now written a book about her experiences growing up in Churchill, Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director A Churchill Gisele deMeullesman saidspent writmore than asomething day walking ing wasn’t she back town after being alwaystothought she would shot while out trapping, do. RCMP say.youth I never “In my RCMP andwriting,” emergency felt good at she medical services resaid. “But when I moved to Thompson to get into the school of social work, at that point I had to write for university and realized, ‘Holy, I’m not bad at this, right?’ I certainly developed a lot of skill in university and came out of there with a very strong skill in my writing and confidence in my writing. I write very clear and that’s it. It’s there. Some people say it’s kind of blunt or direct. I don’t tend
to write things that you have ‘Oh, I’m just as bad, right?’ was not a very safe thing to figure out. It’s pretty clear I have all these stories and to do but I jumped at it. I when I get through.” I need to capture them for thought that was exciting DeMeulles said she wrote my grandchildren really until the plane landed and her book, titled Whispers in because they will be lost if they started throwing the the Wind: Stories from the I don’t.” fuel off and I realized, ‘Holy North - Life in Churchill for She also has a reputation cats, I was probably sitting sponded a report of a aasperson on a snowmobile for animal. a couple oftoreasons. a storyteller herself. on aan bomb.’” man from a gun- while he such was out trapping The suspect the “I suffering just sort of thought, “I had a varied hisAnother thingin that shot wound and exposure about eight kilometres shooting was wearing a you know what, this his- tory and I would tell people spurred her on was the around p.m. Feb. 7. west ofand Churchill by Butand facing blue snowsuit, tory, this 3stuff that’s in my hard times Churchill stories they would go, black The was ton Bay. neckthe warmer and a black ‘That’s notThe true,victim is it?’ I’dsaid go, asince head,29-year-old it’s going toman be gone Hudson Bay Railtaken to hospital and told he believed the person tuque. The shooter was if I don’t write it down,” she ‘Yeah it’s true.’ They’d go, way suspended operations police that he was shot by may have mistaken him travelling on a black and said. “My kids are not go- ‘You didn’t do all that, did north of Gillam last spring. ing to get it if I don’t do it you? You’ve got to be really “It used to be a really and it’s something I’ve al- old.’ I was like, ‘No, actually thriving large community ways wanted my mom to I did all that before I was and it’s just dwindled down do. My mom’s an elder and 27,’ and they went ‘What?’” to such a small population she’s an artist, she’s got so Looking back, some of now,” deMeulles says. many wonderful stories be- those experiences are things Though she’s not there Contact Nelson 204-307-0281 cause she always tells her atshe might not do again. any longer, her parents and stories at Parks Canada in “I did some pretty bizarre her sister and other family pruderspropertyservices@gmail.com Churchill and I’ve always stuff like fuel hauls into the members still are. hounded her, ‘Please, justproperty high Arctic at -35,” said “My cousin owns the to discuss your needs! put it on tape, I will write it deMeulles. “It didn’t dawn hardware store there,” she for you because your story on me until after. That was a says. is going to be lost,’ and she’s very dangerous thing to do. Because of that, never done it and I thought, Being on a plane full of fuel deMeulles finds it hard to
Nickel Belt News photo by Ian Graham
swallow when people say that Churchill residents should just find somewhere easier to live. “To say, ‘Those people choose to live there. They should just leave,’ is quite blue snowmobile simplistic. It’s quitepulling disreaspectful. sled that waswere lastinseen If we the heading from Butsame boatnorth in another area ton Bay.we would scream I think Thethat incident isdon’t believed about so why they to have occurred during have the option to do that? daylight hours Feb. 5 or I think right now they’re feeling like they’re pawns in a political game and that’s really sad for them because I think the people of Churchill really want to thrive. They’ve built their worlds there. How would we feel if someone came to you and said, ‘I’m sorry, you have to leave your home community and we’re going to displace you somewhere else and all your loved ones and your history is gone?’”
For all the harsh weather and the dangers of polar bears, deMeulles said if it had been viable she would have moved back to Churchill in a heartbeat. “I miss the shoreline, I Feb. 6. miss the rock, I miss the The bears victimeven remains in polar though hospital and Churchill they’re very dangerous and RCMP with I really ask missanyone the Hudson information about the inciBay,” she says. “When I go dent call the detachment back to home, standing on the at 204-677-2551. Hudson Bay looking out on the bay, it just gives you an incredible sense. You feel so small and you feel great.” Now that she’s got one book under her belt, deMeulles says she may try to produce another. “I have another book in me,” she says. “It’s a darker story, more about personal growth and struggles. Maybe in the next five years it’s something I’ll focus on doing.”
Victim believes shooter may have mistaken him for an animal
Yer snow gotta go!