Meet Whitehorse's 99-year-old 'grandmother of the skateboard park'

Whitehorse's "grandmother of the skateboard park" is endorsing plans to build a replacement for the decades-old facility.

Ninety-nine-year-old Amanda Rendell has been quietly cleaning up the skateboard park in the Riverdale neighbourhood for almost 20 years.

Well-known within the skateboarding community, she has otherwise avoided public recognition.

The park is near a well-used walking trail used daily by Rendell.

After the park opened, she noticed it had become a mess.

Ashamed at the state of the skateboard park

"Well, the boys were having lots of fun here, I think. [But] it didn't look very good — and I'm an old Yukoner and I was a little bit ashamed of our skateboard park," said Rendell.

So one day, Rendell decided to do something about it.

"I came over with my rubber gloves on and I started picking up garbage here and there," she said. 

"The boys would look at me and pretty soon they got used to me, so they call me the grandmother of the skateboard park."

Teenager Talen Deschamps said he first noticed Rendell at the park when he was about eight years old.

"Everybody loves her. She cleans up the park, she talks, you know, you have a conversation with her," he said.

He said most of the litter Rendell picks up is left behind by young people hanging out at the park, not by the skaters, who are grateful for what she does.

Rendell said the skateboarders have recognized her over the years with barbecues, bouquets of flowers and a portrait of her in the park's bowl.

"When I first started, some of the boys would say to me: 'if anybody bothers you, you just come to me and let me know,'" she said, but there was never any need.

"They've always respected me. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here."

Skaters deserve a new park

She said her work at the park gets her out almost every day for exercise and fresh air as well as the company of young people.

Rendell also takes in an occasional competition. "Some of them are pretty good," she said.

The Skate for Life Alliance community group has been working with city and territorial officials to replace the current dilapidated park. Rendell said the skateboarders deserve it.

"I think it's a wonderful idea," she said. "It's nice something's going to be done about it."