By Derek Cornet

Town planner attends conference focusing on winter cities concept

Jan 30, 2019 | 5:56 PM

This article was updated at 2019-01-31 00:05.
Finding ways to make the snow and cold more bearable was the focus of the Winter Cities Shake-Up conference last week in Saskatoon.

Held Jan. 23 to 26, the international event was attended by La Ronge Town Planner Abby Besharah. She called it an incredible opportunity where she was able to learn what other places were doing and scale it down to make it work in the municipality. The conference was attended by professionals throughout Canada and the United States, as well as parts of Europe.

“With La Ronge being a winter city, I thought it was important to broaden my understanding of some of the strategies that need to be deployed here versus other places where they might not deal with the same operational or design needs,” Besharah said. “The conference itself is about designing for, operating in and being active in winter. It was very much a cross-professional or multidisciplinary-type conference, but it was very applicable to a municipal conference.”

While the winter cities concept has been around for some time, Besharah noted it’s mostly utilized by Nordic countries where they’re more open to ideas that would be harder to implement in North America. Moving forward with her work with the town, she’s hopeful she can include some of what she learned in her plans for council. To gain as many ideas as possible, Besharah attended several workshops on multiple topics throughout the week.

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When it comes to La Ronge being a winter city, Besharah stated there are already local activities that fit in with the concept. She said Parks and Recreation Manager Tonia Logan has been busy in recent years making Patterson Park a better place to visit in winter months with the inclusion of an ice rink with underwater and above-ground lighting. When the weather is decent enough, town staff will also be installing a crokicurl rink on the lake this year.

“Communities that have a positive mindset and culture about winter experience less reported seasonal depression,” Besharah said. “Those kind of mindset changes really have an enormous impact on the well-being and health of the community.”

The winter cities concept could also be implemented more in La Ronge with the assistance of businesses or non-profit organizations. As an example, Besharah noted town council has a partnership with the Boreal Outdoor Recreation Association in the development of their bike skills park. She added council would also likely be interested in hearing from other groups who want to enter such a partnership with more of a focus on winter pastimes.

derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno