Fear, frustration and failing infrastructure in Elliot Lake

It's a rainy October evening and parents are hauling giant hockey bags into the Massey Arena for the weekly practice of the under-11 rep team.

It seems like a normal northern Ontario scene, but these parents and kids are all with the minor hockey association in Elliot Lake, a 45-minute drive away. 

"It's a little bit strange. I'm not going to lie," Kate Wannan, the association's scheduler, said while sitting in the stands watching her son on the ice. 

"It's strange, but also a relief."

Wannan scrambled to find ice time for the 100 young hockey players after Elliot Lake's only arena was suddenly shutdown in September out of fears the 55-year-old wooden structure could collapse, and is happy they found a way to "keep a hockey community going."

"I'm just a little bit more tired, just more time on the road. And so far it's OK. I'm just a little bit nervous about the winter," she said. 

"For me, it's more like the time budget and I do lots of stuff in town, and I might have to sacrifice some of the things that i do for this."

The Centennial Arena is just the latest on the list of buildings in the city of 11,000 to fail in recent years.  

The deadly collapse of the Algo Centre Mall in 2012 made international headlines, followed in 2019 by another roof cave-in at the Pearson Centre, which housed the city's theatre, art gallery and museum.

And for more than a year, the municipal swimming pool has been closed for repairs.

"They're surprises, but they're not surprises. We just can't have any more. We want to know what's happening. The community needs answers," said Chantal Robert, from the Elliot Lake Skating Club, who is also doing the drive to Massey twice a week. 

"It has created a fear in all of us. Like even if they restrengthen the structure, I'm not sure I'm going to feel 100 per cent safe in there."

Elliot Lake city council voted last week to spend some $300,000 to shore up the arena, but that is just so engineers can go in safely to assess the structure and determine if it can be saved.

It's been well known that Centennial Arena was reaching the end of its life. It was closed for a time in the early 1980s and then five years ago, the city did repairs in the hopes the rink would last long enough for plans for a new multi-million-dollar recreation hub to come together. 

But Bill Goulding, the city's acting director of public works, told council that those contractors were told to only spend the "absolute minimum," calling that "astounding" and a "ridiculous request to make of an engineer."

"I think that's where we screwed up five years ago and I think that's why we're in this uncomfortable position now," he said.

Goulding said the arena could be "restorable," but the city is also exploring options for building a new rink, meaning he no longer has time for "a loud constituent demanding a piece of information that will take half your day."

"If it doesn't have a million dollars attached to it, I'm not paying attention to it as much as other people would like me to," he said at a public meeting on the arena situation last week. 

"It's not nice ... because this community needs us to be focusing on these big-picture items so we can sustain ourselves."

Hundreds of Elliot Lakers have signed a petition wanting a public meeting giving a detailed account on the state of the city's infrastructure.

Susan Anderson, who moved up with her husband in 2019 when they "couldn't afford to live in Mississauga any longer,"  collected many of those signatures and said many were most concerned about the state of the roads in Elliot Lake.

"There's been a lot that's happened in the four years I've been here and none of its good. Like I've said before, I wouldn't want to be in council's position right now," she said. 

"Most wouldn't mind paying more taxes if they got something in return for it. But they don't like seeing the downward trend that the city is going through."

Former city councillor Tom Turner said while it's simple to say "just raise the taxes and you'll have enough money," city staff are worried about being "seen as always asking for more and more money," mayor and council don't want to be "seen as spending money or raising taxes" and citizens often think they know best and you have "government by Facebook."

"Then all you do is slap Band-Aids. And eventually you have a building made of Band-Aids," said Turner, who was voted out with most of the previous council in last fall's election.  

"It's going to take a lot of guts to do it, but it's time to build."

There is some progress on the arts front, with construction currently underway to convert an old cinema into a multi-use arts space and the recent purchase of an old church to also fill some of the void left by the Pearson centre.

Prisca Campbell, now chair of the Arts and Culture Round Table in Elliot Lake, came to town just before the theatre roof collapsed and suddenly found that "the reason I had come had gone"

"We've had essentially a chasm in the arts for four years," she said, pointing out that the loss of the centre was quickly followed by the pandemic.

"There was an extraordinary amount of disappointment, because I was not the only one to choose Elliot Lake for the depth of its arts community."

Back at the arena in Massey, Kevin Burke is thrilled to see a parking lot full of cars and trucks.

The mayor of Sables-Spanish Rivers said there weren't enough kids to have a local minor hockey league this winter, although a few have now signed up to play for Elliot Lake teams. 

"It's a guessing game. 'Well, let's see how many kids are going to sign up' and if you don't have enough kids, you don't have enough kids," said Burke, adding that the town recently put some money into its arena, including a new roof and chiller. 

"And I'm sure that led to the demise of many a small town arena in the north, but we're managing and this will help."

Burke said he's also encouraging local businesses in Massey to change their hours to serve all of those customers now driving to the rink several times a week from Elliot Lake.