After 51 years serving the community, the Hay River Elks are preparing to fold the club, perhaps permanently.
“It’s kind of sad that it’s coming to an end because, honestly, that wasn’t even on our radar even up to a year ago,” said president Gerard Carroll, while sitting in the Elks lodge in the lower level of the Godwin Mall.
Carroll said he had believed that the issues facing the club were just stumbling blocks that could be overcome.
However, now the Elks will be talking to the Grand Lodge of the Elks for Canada about closing the lodge in Hay River or possibly suspending its charter.
“What we’re trying to do is, instead of just shutting down and making it final, we’re just going to suspend it,” said Carroll. “We’re trying to, we’re not saying it’s going to be given us. It depends on them and I don’t know if they’ve gone through that type of process before because there’s lodges closing all across Canada. I don’t know if they’re being suspended just for now or if they’re just shutting their doors and dissolving the charter.”
Whatever the decision, Lodge #534 – which formed in 1970 – will be closing for the foreseeable future.
Carroll said three major issues are leading to the club’s closure.
The main problem is a declining number of members.
“Some of our members have retired and moved away,” Carroll explained. “They’re sort of like members at large, but they’re out of town. When they’re in town they do help us. We just don’t have the manpower, anymore. There’s only three of us left.”
At its height, the Hay River Elks had well over 100 members.
Carroll noted falling membership numbers is occurring at Elks Clubs across Canada.
“There’s so many lodges have closed,” he said. “We’re not getting volunteers anymore. That’s completely changed. The membership is getting older.”
Carroll pointed out the club had about a dozen members two or three years ago.
“But then they just disappeared,” he said, estimating that a minimum of seven or eight members are required for a functioning club.
Carroll said another significant factor is that revenue for the club has dried up, largely because of the March 2019 fire at the Mackenzie Place high-rise, which closed the building and removed the Elks’ bingo from cable and satellite television.
“On the 17th floor, we had our own little room where we used to call TV bingo and we had Channel 649 from Bell and we had Channel 5, the Green Screen of the community channel,” he said. “We couldn’t get up there to have bingo because the building was closed.”
After TV, the Elks tried radio bingo, but Carroll noted the demographic for bingo was older and they were comfortable with TV bingo, and then the radio station became unavailable.
The third factor was restrictions for Covid-19.
“We had to shut down and wait for a while, and we had no income coming in,” said Carroll.
About a half-dozen years ago, the Elks were putting between $95,000 and $100,000 of its fundraising back into the community.
Now, it has the space for its lodge rented until the end of June, when it will have to remove all its flags, trophies, banners, medals and various other memorabilia.
Some of it will be donated to various people, while Carroll also hopes that other items may end up at the Hay River Heritage Centre for a display on the legacy of the Elks in Hay River.
That legacy is impressive, but Carroll puts one thing at the top of a long list.
“The golf club would be our legacy, because we built that place,” he said. “The original one burnt down and we rebuilt that.”
Another notable accomplishment was the Tri-Service Park, a project with the Lions Club and Kiwanis Club, two other service organizations which no longer exist in Hay River.
Then there was the Elks’ support for soccer, minor hockey, curling, Spook-A-Rama, Girl Guides, school sports, academic awards, healthcare, seniors, Lights On, the library and much more.
Asked who will replace all that support to the community, Carroll replied, “I don’t know.”
Carroll has been president for 18 months and a member of the club for over 20 years.
It’s hard to believe that the lodge is closing, he said. “The people that were here, we’re friends. We got to know each other. A lot of people I met here through the Elks.”
Personally, Carroll intends to maintain links with the Elks by joining the club in Yellowknife as a member at large.