Iqaluit's recreation needs considered too urgent for long time horizon

Jesse Mike is a 22-year-old Inuk woman from Iqaluit, once described in Nunatsiaq News as "arguably the best female [hockey] player in the territory."

She is just two years into the first major job of her professional career, as youth policy analyst with Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated.

Glen Higgins is a Qallunaat male who has lived in the north for 35 years, the last 22 of them in Iqaluit. He describes himself as a couple of years away from the end of his own professional career as manager of Nunavut Emergency Services for the territorial government.

In age, gender, life circumstances and cultural heritage, Higgins and Mike could hardly be more different.

But they have lots in common, including hockey, the very successful Nunavut Stars summer hockey camp, and a vision for the city they each call home.

They dream of a multiplex facility for Nunavut's capital, where Iqaluit families can, as Higgins put it, "come back together again" to participate in a wide variety of sports, recreational and cultural activities.

It would be "a centre for the community." As things stand, "there is no centre, no heart, in the community," Higgins said.

"Iqaluit is the capital," noted Mike, yet its facilities are all over the place. Smaller Nunavut communities she has visited, such as Rankin Inlet, Baker Lake and Clyde River, all have versions of community recreation centres that serve very important roles in the community.

Iqaluit needs "a place for everyone to be able to gather," Mike said.

Higgins exposed his multiplex plan to public scrutiny for the first time last week when he appeared before city council to argue for the least expensive upgrade option for the Arctic Winter Games arena.

He proposed that council "deal with the AWG arena on a year-to-year basis," with the idea of allowing his group of private citizens to bring energy and commitment to bear on the multiplex project, which he described as a combined recreation facility, cultural centre, and a "life centre."

He envisions it as including a double-pad arena for hockey, a gym and a community hall, a swimming pool and perhaps a theatre facility, "and with a cultural theme from the time you walk in until when you walk out."

If council chose the $242,000 option to fix the AWG arena, suggested Higgins, it could still have a good indoor soccer facility there.

The aging and ailing Arnaitok arena could be coaxed along for a two or three more years, Higgins added, until phase one of the new multiplex could be implemented – a new ice pad that would be built on the vacant lot beside Arnaitok.

The city would not have to worry about finding money to build the multiplex, Higgins stressed. He described a "small group of people – but very committed," who would take on that responsibility.

They're mostly people associated with the Nunavut Stars hockey camp Higgins helped launch in 2002, and which Mike has helped run since the year after she first came to the camp as a hockey player. "That's where the people are collected right now."

Higgins wouldn't name specific businesses who would provide money to pay for the multiplex, although he did make a passing reference to mining corporations.

Once it's built, he told council, the city could take over managing and maintaining it, perhaps with an arms-length board, to run city recreation and cultural programs and as a facility for community groups to book for various uses that could include theatre, dance and community meetings, as well as the full gamut of sports and recreational activities.

Higgins noted that with all recreational facilities gathered in one place, maintenance and management could be a lot more cost effective. One Zamboni will do for the two ice pads, and staff don't have to be running around between multiple facilities.

The lease the city holds on Iqaluit's swimming pool is also due to run out in 2010, and owner Nunastar has said it will not be renewed. So Iqaluit could end up without a swimming pool, currently the most used recreational facility in town.

Although several councillors clearly found Higgins' vision compelling, council eventually decided to go ahead with the most expensive option for fixing the AWG arena, a $2.1 million plan that includes installing a full concrete structural slab for the ice pad and bleachers.

It was a deadlocked vote that took Deputy Mayor Jimmy Kilabuk to break the tie, but in the end council felt recreation needs are too pressing to wait for Higgins grand plan to be implemented.

Glen Higgins "has a 30-year vision for Iqaluit," said councillor Allen Hayward during the debate.

"I'm looking at recreational services for the next five to 10 years."

In an interview, Higgins admitted that his group's "thinking is still a bit scattered now," but expressed confidence that the multiplex is "something that could be realized within five years."

Perhaps surprisingly, neither Higgins nor Jesse Mike seem daunted by the prospect of raising the approximately $30 million they expect the multiplex will cost.

"I wouldn't want to see the city fund it," said Higgins. "They couldn't, when it comes down to it. And neither could the Nunavut government."

Besides, he added, this project will require a long-term vision and passion, something you can't expect to get from politicians.

"I'm committed to this for life. I'm not going anywhere," Higgins told council.

He later told Nunatsiaq News that once he retires from his GN position in a couple of years, he expects to devote himself full-time to realizing the multiplex vision.

"Nobody has brought all the corporate interests together. There are people who come up here to make money, and there are a lot of success stories."

It's time "to tie their success with the needs of the youth," Higgins said, noting the city's high rates of social problems, including drug and alcohol abuse – and suicide.

For her part, Mike has earlier spoken about the importance of her involvement in hockey in keeping her out of trouble as a teenager. "I don't think I would be in such a good state right now, mentally and physically, if it wasn't for hockey," she once said.

At a recent public meeting on the future of the AWG arena, Northmart manager Kieran O'Sullivan said his company was interested in "funding aspects" of the AWG repair to keep it as a functioning arena.

"With Nunavut Stars we've gotten pretty good at finding money to run programs," said Higgins. "We could go to our patrons to help us get to the next level. I don't see it as a real obstacle."

The Nunavut Stars hockey program, which last summer provided a free hockey camp experience for 137 Nunavut youth, also has connections with the National Hockey League, most notably through Mike Pelino.

Pelino, an assistant coach with the New York Rangers, has been coming up to Iqaluit for 14 years and has been involved with the Nunavut Stars hockey program since he helped get it up and running in 2002.

The next step, Higgins said, is to find an architect "to look at the space and help us come up with a concept and design a model for us. You have to have something concrete to show people."

Once they have a model or even just an architect's sketch to make public, Higgins and Mike plan to host a town meeting to build on the vision and begin working towards making it a reality.

"When you can see an end product," you can figure out what needs to happen to move it forward.

If any two Iqalummiut can galvanize the community and muster the approximately $30 million financial support to turn this dream into reality, there's a good chance it will be Higgins and Mike.

"The right people with the right passion and the right ideas, if you take it forward, can realize amazing things," said Higgins.