THUNDER BAY – The rides over at Chippewa Park are once again opening this weekend for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and Parks and Open Space manager Cory Halvorsen says that it’s something that residents have been waiting for.
“I know that these rides and these services that are provided hold a special place in a lot of people’s minds and hearts around the city,” he said.
“We hear that repeatedly every year when we open the rides and they come to see them. It's people of all ages, families, they really have this short summer season and these types of services and the amusement rides themselves bring a really positive influence and experience.”
Opening alongside the usual rides at Chippewa Park is the carousel, which has much of the restoration work already done and is planned to be fully completed by May 2023.
“Because of COVID that delayed a number of aspects of the project, the key one being the 16 iconic scenes that will surround the top of the carousel,” said Ian Angus, secretary to the Friends of Chippewa Park.
“Superior Collegiate staff and students have been working away at painting them, but, because they were all sent home for a number of months, we lost time. So, that’s going to continue in the fall. And without those, we couldn’t put all the carved elements that the Thunder Bay Carvers had created for us onto those same panels and mount them.”
Though the carousel will be missing its cloth canopy and much of the carved work, it will in fact be operational this summer, with plans to keep the horses covered when the ride is not in use to help protect the new paint.
Over at Centennial Park, the Muskeg Express, which shut down after only a few hours of being in operation last year due to derailment, is once again ready to make its way down the tracks and Halvorsen says that he’s confident that the train will stay on the tracks this year.
“That’s some modifications that we did last year after that had occurred. We continued to operate and investigate and make all sorts of observations that we actually did find some mechanical changes that we were able to do,” he said.
“We’re very confident that those issues have been resolved and we will be able to have consistent operations.”
The rides begin to run on June 18 at 1 p.m. and will run every weekend in June and then from 1 p.m. until 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday starting in July.
