When it comes to sport, recreation and culture, the Northern Village of Ile-a-la Crosse is ready to pass the ball to the community itself. Recently, Ile-a-la Crosse council announced the impending formation of a recreation management board to plan, direct and develop a comprehensive recreation and cultural development strategy for the community. “As you can surmise, a lot of the communities in the north are struggling with social problems, particularly drug use,” explained Ile-a-la Crosse mayor Buckley Belanger when speaking with Northern Pride. “What council wants to do is offer a different form of entertainment and to regenerate our interest in our history through sports development and cultural celebrations. As northern people, that job is dependent on us as local leaders. My council is advocating, yes, we need to be cognizant of the drug problem that impacts all of us, but we also have to provide options and avenues of entertainment and activity as part of the solution.” In recent weeks, the northern village cancelled its recreation services agreement with the local friendship centre to look at its own service delivery options.

“Council wants an aggressive plan to promote a sports and cultural development model that excites our youth, children, and residents of Ile-a-la Crosse,” Belanger added. “We feel the board members represent a fair cross-section of local people that include youth, experience, elders, women and the disabled community. The structure of this board ensures they can develop an exciting plan that is inclusive and wide ranging.” Belanger went on to say, not only is council looking to get tough on the drug activity in the community, but also wants to develop sport, culture and recreation, as well as the economy and mental health strategies.

“Our community has basically four pillars we are trying to put in place – this is our first exercise in developing these pillars,” he noted. “The local friendship centre did have a relationship with the village (in terms of implementing sports and recreation activities), but the village wanted to go in a totally different direction. We want a recreation board that represents as many of the local interest groups as possible and which will have control of our facilities, of fundraising for these facilities and a budget to work with. We want this board to be highly motivated… We’d like to develop minor sports by bringing in good coaches and aligning ourselves with other communities such as Beauval which doesn’t have a rink of its own. It’s all about imagination and it’s about council saying recreation and cultural development are really important for us to provide to the community, so let’s give them control. Once you give it back to the people it opens the doors to many more people coming onboard with different ideas.”

To date, Belanger said much interest has been expressed by community members looking to join the new board. “Council wants to support 100 per cent the efforts of the recreation board,” he stated. “We will support them in their fundraising but won’t interfere in their operations.” He also said one concept in particular the northern village is interested in helping the board with is the notion of artificial ice being installed at the local arena. “For years people said you can’t put artificial ice where our current facility is because there is marsh around that area and methane gas could build up,” Belanger said. “You hear all these excuses, but, since I’ve been to a number of communities during my time as an MLA, people share their success stories. The Town of Beechy, SK has 110-120 residents and they have artificial ice. We are 16 times larger than Beechy, and, when you learn from other communities how to do certain things, you can do it too. If they can do it and do it well, why can’t Ile-a-la Crosse? We don’t need to look for excuses as to why we can’t have artificial ice. We just need to find the logic behind how we can put in artificial ice. Council is saying we need energy, we need ideas, we need dedicated people. Let’s get the community moving, let’s empower this new group and artificial ice in our arena would be a great way to motivate them.”