Thunder Bay councillor seeks options to help outdoor rinks weather climate change

A Thunder Bay city councillor is asking for ideas to keep outdoor rinks usable in the face of climate change.

Neebing Coun. Greg Johnsen is tabling a memo at Monday's council meeting about the issue, asking administration to come back with a report by December.

"Over the past few years the city of Thunder Bay has been dealing with the unfortunate realities of climate change," the memo reads. "In particular, our winter weather has changed to the point that providing outdoor rinks (ODR) services in the future may not be a viable financial option. This should be avoided at all costs."

In the memo, Johnsen states he'd like the report to include the "costs, potential benefits, and improvements gained to service levels" for:

• Synthetic rinks;
• Adding refrigeration systems;
• Covered rinks;
• Concrete pads, to allow the rinks to be used for roller blades instead of skates, and
• Outdoor rink hubs.

In an interview with CBC News on Friday, Johnsen said he hopes the city never has to actually implement any of those options.

"Ultimately this comes down to climate change," he said. "I think we had eight weeks of usable ice this past winter."

"The ideal is to have good, cold weather ... and have the good hard rink surfaces," Johnsen said. "But what we're seeing is unfortunately more of the opposite. So my concern is for not only user groups, but also the employees of the city that are working on these rinks."

"I think it's good governance to think outside the box and have a few plans in place in case we need them."

Johnsen's memo is being tabled the same day as council will get an update on the past winter's outdoor rink usage; the update came out of an earlier recommendation by administration to close 31 of the city's 39 outdoor rinks due to low demand.

But while the city did scale back the outdoor rink program, it wasn't to the extent that administration was recommending last summer.

"As we entered the 2023-2024 season, we did apply a reduction to the overall program," said Cory Halvorsen, manager of parks and open spaces, said. "We had downgraded a few supervised sites and eliminated some ponds and boarded sites"

"So we operated that through the winter and part of that decision process to change the overall program requested administration to report back in June with statistics on usage over the the previous winter."

Overall, the report shows an increase in usage of outdoor rinks last winter when compared to previous years.

For example, rinks supervised by city staff saw 7.1 users per hour last winter, up from 5.6 and 4.7 the previous two winters, respectively. The number of people using the rinks last winter still fell short of the target of 10 users per hour, however.

Community-supervised rinks, boarded unsupervised rinks, and ponds also saw increases.

The skating pad at Prince Arthur's Landing — which features an ice-making plant — remains the most-popular option, with nearly 40 users per hour last winter, up from about 29 the previous year.

"Each individual rink could vary," Halvorsen said. "Some would go down, some would go up, but overall the user per hour results did go up, so that was a positive."

That's despite a shorter season than usual, he said.

"We had a late start due to the warm temperatures, and an early completion again due to the warm temperatures," Halvorsen said. "But when the ice was available people were coming out to use them."

Outdoor rinks will be back on the council agenda in the coming months, as well, as the city is currently reviewing its overall policy.

Halvorsen said the review will lead to a report that covers "the overall rinks procedure policy that we we operate under, and provide recommendations."

"I can't really say whether we'll be recommending anything any different in September as of yet," he said. "We have to work through that report."