CORNER BROOK, N.L. — For the past couple of years, the City of Corner Brook has been focusing on how it can make its recreation facilities more accessible.
Jessica Parsons, the city’s supervisor of recreation services, said the city wasn’t looking at just buildings, it also wanted to include its parks and trails and one way it saw doing so was to purchase three Hippocampe all-terrain wheelchairs.
“They’re some great chairs. They’re really going to open up recreation opportunities for many people from within the city and around the city,” Parsons said.
Two of the chairs are specific to all-terrain use in outdoors activities on parks and trails and the third is for water use and will be available for use in the splash pad at Margaret Bowater Park during the summer months.
The city got two of the chairs in late 2019 and the other one in early 2020 but hasn’t been able to make them available to the public because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That was completely put on hold and with all the ups and down of not knowing how COVID was going to look day to day we never really brought them out.”
The city was going to bring them out in the fall, but a cluster of cases in Deer Lake resulted in shelving the plans.
Last month — and because the chairs can be equipped with skis — the city decided to offer one to Blow Me Down Trails.
It was an offer Shawn Leamon, manager of the cross-country ski and snowshoe facility, couldn’t pass up.
He’s seen the benefits of having such equipment firsthand.
A few years ago, he made up a sled that an entire wheelchair could fit on for a child in Blow Me Down’s afterschool program, one that could be moved around by the child’s assistant.
The child had sat in the window crying on the first day because he couldn’t get out and participate with his class.
The joy on that young lad’s face the first day they put him on the snow and he could go with his class left Leamon thinking something like this had to continue. But the cost of purchasing the equipment was not within the club’s ability right now.
So, he said the city’s offer came at just the right time.
“It’s making it accessible to everyone.”
Offering the chair for use to members and visitors is on hold until the COVID-19 Alert Level allows because getting someone into the chair and strapped in requires a lot of personal interaction.
Leamon said the chair will be great for anyone with mobility challenges. Unlike the sit skis that Blow Me Down has, the chair is not self-propelled so Leamon suggests it might be best for an assistant to use snowshoes to walk behind and maintain control of the chair.
He said it’s nice to see the recreation department explore options to make this type of thing available for the community.
Parsons said once the city gets the chair back from Blow Me Down it will look at its spring and summer recreation program and making the chairs available to more people.
All three chairs will be located at Margaret Bowater Park and a staff member will sign them in and out and carry out cleaning protocols.
One of the chairs will be for use exclusively within the park and the Corner Brook Stream Trail area. The second will be available to take to other areas of the city and outside to places like Gros Morne.
“To give them more possibilities to explore,” Parsons said,
Diane Crocker reports on west coast news. [email protected] | Twitter: @WS_DianeCrocker
