THUNDER BAY — The onset of suitable weather means that many outdoor skating rinks across the city are opening for the season.
Preparations fell behind schedule last week because of milder weather and snowfalls, so Wednesday was one of the first days recently that city crews had a chance to do some flooding rather than remove snow from ice surfaces.
Cory Halvorsen, the city's manager of parks and open spaces, said all supervised sites were expected to be open for skating by the end of the day, but unsupervised locations were a little farther behind.
"Some of them will be open, some of them won't," Halvorsen said. "Any of them that aren't ready will have closed signs on them. Any of them that are ready should have the nets out on them."
The skating loop at Vickers Park and the new boarded rink at Dease Park were also expected to be ready for use by Wednesday evening.
The popular Vickers Park skating path was inaugurated last winter, with a length of 250 metres, but has been expanded this year to 500 metres, and spans the entire north half of the park.
Halvorsen said it's a little more challenging to get the loop, which is unsupervised, ready for skating.
"We've done some work to level out the trail and do some grading. It starts with some banking along the sides, and we need consistent cold weather to build up a base because it isn't quite as level as what you would have in a rink. Once we get the base in place, we actually have an attachment at the back of the tanker that evenly distributes water at a slower rate, as opposed to just having one valve spilling into the centre."
At supervised sites, the hours of use are 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., either seven days a week or five days a week.
Details for each location can be found online.
Halvorsen said the city will release details later this week as to which specific days the supervised sites will be open during the Christmas holiday break.
