If there’s a secret to economic development success in the Rainy River District, Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls may have cracked it.
That’s the message coming out of last weekend’s meeting of the Rainy River District Municipal Association (RRDMA), which brought together the district’s municipal leaders for a day-long conference at the Nestor Falls Community Hall.
The annual meeting is part of governance in the province of Ontario, allowing municipalities to identify strengths and shortcomings of the district, formulate long-term plans, and move forward issues to bring to the provincial government through advocacy groups like the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO). The meeting also allows municipalities to get updates and goals from district-wide organizations like the Northwestern Health Unit (NWHU), the District of Rainy River Services Board (DRRSB) and more. The event also regularly features political representatives at the provincial and federal levels, including the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH) and Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski.
Included in this year’s slate of speakers were Township of Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls CAO Heather Gropp and Treasurer Maureen Hanson, who gave RRDMA delegates an overview on the municipality’s economic development successes in recent years.
According to Gropp, the township set out roughly six years ago to revitalize the community, which is largely reliant on tourism, of which Gropp said rouyghly 80 percent of the businesses in the area rely upon. As the trends of large tourist groups from the United States have declined over the years, in addition to other factors, Gropp said the municipality set out to undertake a comprehensive revitalization plan to make the township more attractive to domestic tourism.
“There’s challenges when your primary industry is tourism,” Gropp said.
“We can no longer be reliant on the big parties coming up from the U.S., fishermen and hunters coming up here for a week-long stay. It’s still happening, but not at the rates it used to. There’s the sustainability of Natrual Resources issue, there’s only so many fish in the lake, so many animals in the forest. And we’re seeing changing visitor demographics, people are bringing their families. That’s great. What do we have for them?”
In order to address this change in tourism demographics, and to try and encourage more domestic tourism, Gropp said the township established a plan with four pillars to try and make Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls a destination for all kinds of visitors. Gropp said that the municipality adopted this new economic development plan in May 2022, and focused on Community Development, Economic Development, Tourism, Arts and Culture Development and First Nations Partnerships to try and improve the township not only for tourists, but for those who live there as well.
“This plan was put together in consultation with our community through focus groups, surveys, interviews, and it was basically our roadmap,” Gropp said.
“It was what guided us in all of our grant applications that we have put together, and in all of the initiatives that we have done.”
In examining Community Development, Gropp said the municipality focused on completing its highway redevelopment plan, along with improving and enhancing its municipal facilities. The township also worked to facilitate housing development to support growth and employee retention, and enhanced service offerings that were available in the community to support residents.
As a result of this focus, Gropp shared that the township has seen its first housing development in years, which is currently underway, with four other prospects in “various stages of completion.”
Once some of these projects were realized, including cohesive signage through the Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls corridor, as well as a new four-season recreation facility, parks, and improvements to the government docks, Gropp said the township then needed to move onto developing things for people to do when they arrived, or already live, in the area. That meant helping local businesses and providing more services.
“We have improved the infrastructure in the community and now needed the programming and the services to bnring that infrastructure to life, to make it useable, to make it desirable for people to want to come out,” Gropp said.
“That’s really what we did, in terms of enhancing service offerings. We also did initiatives like our Community Health Hub, which provides ancillary medical services, it’s where the CMHC comes and provides counselling services, it’s where we have a naturopathic doctor who comes and does workshops, it’s where we have the labs that come in every week or every two weeks to the community… In terms of economic development, it was our plan to support the growth, retention, establishment of businesses in the community, to create an environment and tools that strengthen our position as a place to grow and invest. Part of this was just consistent engagement and communication with businesses.”
Gropp said the township implemented a number of measures to regularly check in with the businesses, including regular email lists, in order to keep businesses informed of the townships projects and workings that directly impact them.
The township has also worked on developing more tourism, arts and culture in the area by working with local and area artists, creators, tourism operators and supportive businesses to develop programming, activities, marketing and dedicated strategies to transition the township into a “true four season destination,” as per a slideshow Gropp included as part of her presentation to the RRDMA delegation. What that looks like in practice, or at least in part, is the continually improved-upon trail system that allows for mountain biking and hiking. The township has also worked to develop bird watching programs, community walks, picnic areas, summer markets and facilities to make the area easier to access for people of all ages and activity levels, regardless of the season. Gropp noted that the efforts to improve the activites available, and focus on sharing the town more in Canada, has helped ease the reliance on U.S. tourism.
“We know that traditionally, we have been dependent on the U.S. market,” Gropp said.
“We have switched that. We have been talking regionally. We’ve been sharing our programmes and our amenities regionally, and we have seen visitors to our community from Fort Frances and Kenora almost double over the last five years for day trips. And yes, they’re not staying for a week, but now they’re supporting different businesses. They’re supporting gift shops. They’re supporting the restaurants, which is creating a more robust and well rounded visitor market. We’re seeing increases from Manitoba, and we’re looking beyond that as to where we can expand.”
The final pillar is fostering partnerships with area First Nation communities, which Gropp said has involved regular meetings in order to get their input on different needs, projects and programs, such as joint programming on the expansive trail network. The purpose is to work together in partnership and to listen and learn from the First Nations and Indigenous perspectives to better the area for all.
“There is no schedule,” Gropp said.
“As things come up, we get together, we talk, we work on joint programming, on the regional trail networks. There’s a couple of the communities who are very interested, and so we’ve brought in specific workshops for youth to provide opportunities to build that community across communities. We’ve looked at relationship building opportunities. We worked with the Ojibways of Onigaming community at [the Nestor Falls site] because we knew it had historical significance. We brought in a Historical Interpreter. We sat down for months, and we developed the interpretive panels at the site together with language, with ceremony. And these pictures are from the sunrise ceremony we had before ground was broken and the redevelopment started at that site. So it was really exciting. And we’ve continued with those partnerships.”
In short, the development plan is working, Gropp said, with the housing developments, child care spaces, improved and diversified businesses, and more regional and domestic tourism. It isn’t one person or community doing the work, she said, rather its the power or partnership and of focusing on the problems facing the area and finding new and innovative solutions to those problems, and then making them happen.
“We have increased collaboration and relationships with our neighbouring communities, stronger relationships with our local business community, improved and enhanced community facilities and service offering offerings, and we continue with regional collaborations and partnerships,” Gropp said.
None of us are islands. We can’t do it alone. We need to work together to get big things done. And so this is our invitation to reach out. We’d like to work with other communities. We’d like to be supportive, and that’s how we’re going to get things done.”
