New playground equipment is going up this summer in Fort Simpson and Fort Smith.
In Fort Simpson, installation of a new play area for kids is set to kick off in August with hopes of completion before winter.
The planning stage for the new structure has taken a little time to get off the ground, Mayor Sean Whelly acknowledged.
“We’ve been looking at recreational upgrades since the new council got in a little bit over two years ago,” said Whelly. “This was one of the longer-term plans that we had and it got placed on the capital plan, and it’s coming up for this year.”
The idea for the structure came about when the council wanted to do something for local children.
“When you talk recreation, there’s things for adults to do. There’s always golfing, or recreational hockey or curling,” the mayor said. “There’s not too many things for little kids to do. We do have an area down here by the Mackenzie and Liard (rivers), where they join and the big beaches start to develop into August but it’s just a short period of time where kids can really go down to the water. We thought it would be nice to give them a chance to have a playground area where they could just run around and have sprinklers going and adults could sit in the shade.”
In Fort Smith, acting mayor Chris Westwell said once the latest playground work is done, the town will have replaced or upgraded all of its playgrounds within the last six to eight years.
“Additionally to that, we’re actually seeing one new playground installed and a new play space being installed, then we’re seeing a return to a playground that has been missing for about 20 years,” said Westwell.
The returning play structure is the St. Ann’s playground.
“St. Ann’s Street has been missing a playground for about 20 years,” said Westwell. “We had an arrangement with the housing authority for a long time in the past where they have a property which, in agreement with the Town of Fort Smith, they weren’t taxed so long as they maintained the playground, and that playground feel into disrepair, was eventually removed and never replaced. So the town is entering into agreements, hopefully, with the housing authority, taking ownership of that land and installing a new playground and turning it into a town of Fort Smith green space.”
Other play structures under development or being constructed within the town include those in the area of the recreation centre, the daycare, Kid City and Key Ferguson.