LAC LA BICHE - The big dirt hills in the middle of the Lac La Biche Recreation Grounds look like … (insert your ideas here).
Maybe they're giant ant hills waiting for giant ants to move in? UFO landing pads? Table-top moto-cross jumps?
Or are they simply piles of dirt stockpiled where the oldest baseball field in Lac La Biche used to be?
There have been lots of questions about the half-dozen mounds left in the Lac La Biche Recreation Grounds, and not all the questions are coming from residents passing by the field of big bumps.
“What’s with the stockpiles of dirt?” asked municipal Coun. Sterling Johnson at a recent Lac La Biche County council meeting.
The dirt mounds were built up last summer, just months after the historic baseball diamond was removed, its shale infield and outfield fencing was transported to another baseball field, and all the top soil and grass was scraped away. The mounds now sit in the middle of municipal land that will eventually become a large area of greenspace, picnic benches, walking paths, a town-square area, a concrete skate park and an off-road bicycle track. The area will also see upgrades to lake-side features, including a new boat launch, dock and a lakeshore boardwalk area.
The total budget for the McAthur Park overhaul is currently at $7.5 million.
So what are those mounds?
“They were built to meet toboggan standards,” explains the man behind the plan, Darrell Lessmeister, Lac La Biche County’s associate CAO of Recreation and Community Services. That plan, he says, was to find a unique winter purpose for the stockpiles of dirt needed for the coming McArthur Park re-build. But in a winter with far less snow-cover than expected, the plan didn’t quite slide out as expected.
“I know there have been questions. I’ve heard lots. I’ve heard they are UFO landing pads… but they’re not.”
Lessmeister said the idea to make the mounds into sliding hills needed actual conceptual blueprints, computing height and climbing angles. He said in the world of municipal planning, there are actual guidelines for toboggan structures.
“They were done to proper standards,” he said, “We just didn’t get the snow.”
As winter turns to spring, the mounds will eventually be flattened and used as fill and material for the new groundwork on the park area.
