While the first splash was held at the tail-end of last summer and the spray park opened for Labour Day weekend, a grand opening will take place at the end of June.
Interim CAO for the Town of Fort Frances and Make a Big Splash Fort Frances committee member Travis Rob says they want to hold a big celebration for the community.
“We’re still working on nailing down exactly what the fine details of it are but on Saturday, June 22 at 1 p.m. we’re going to have the celebration part of the grand opening,” Rob said. “We don’t want this to be a great big, everybody’s giving 10-minute speeches, thing. Why are we there? We’re there to celebrate the park, we’re there to have fun, we’re there so kids can play in the splash park right? So that’s what we want to do.”
The Fort Frances Legion will be organizing a colour guard and they’re hoping to have a pipe band to bring in the dignitaries.
“We’ll have a few brief words from a few different people about the project to make it happen and Minister Rickford is supposed to be there, so I’m sure he’ll have some words to share, the mayor is going to be there and he absolutely will have some words to share, so there will be some speeches, but that’s not the purpose of the whole event,” Rob said. “We’re working right now to have some other groups come and have some other activities, games, things like that for the kids.”
The spray park may be operable for the season before that late June grand opening but that depends on the work that still needs to be done. Sod needs to be installed around the park, and sidewalks are in process of being built along King’s Highway in the area near the park and cemetery.
“We’re going to have crews in there probably starting next week, trying to finish up the last of the little pieces here, there and everywhere that we need to get done,” Rob said. “We’ve got sod to put down, we’ve got some sidewalks to build, what I don’t want happening is I don’t want people to wake up in the morning and be like ‘is the park open or closed?’ So I’d like to get in and get the last of the work done around the splash park part, around the [playground] part, and then get out of that area and work in other parts of the park so we can work to maybe open the splash park in advance, but it’s really going to depend on whether we get that work taken care of.”
After the splash park is open, crews will turn their attention to preparing for a basketball court to be installed between the park and the river in line with the old washrooms.
For the grand opening they’d still like to engage more groups to bring activities and things for kids to do. Any group interested can contact Rob, his email is trob@fortfrances.ca
“Some groups have already reached out and let us know they want to participate in some capacity,” Rob said. “I’m really hopeful that we’re going to have a good turnout of agencies there, Minister Rickford is already committed to the barbecue. So we’re hoping to get all these pieces put together here in the next couple of weeks and set out a really great event and celebrate the park and the work that the community put in to make it a reality.”
