It's a little sign, up on a big wall of a building that has made a huge splash in the Lac La Biche community since it opened in 1992.
Portage Pool is home of the Lac La Biche Whitecaps Swim Club. It has been for 26 years — and now a sign lets everyone know it.
The sign, which was sponsored in part by the Lac La Biche Kinsmen, Lac La Biche Elks, Lac La Biche County and Accumark Environmental Ltd., has been welcoming the public and club members to the pool for the start of the 2018/2019 swimming season.
Claudia Theroux with the Whitecaps says the four-foot-by-10-foot lit sign is more than just advertising, it shines a light on the success of the club and the aquatic centre.
"It all started as a simple idea to create a pool for the community," said Theroux, explaining that many people helped to navigate the uncharted waters of aquatic centres during the first discussions that began 20 years ago in 1998.
Ed Behnke was at those discussion tables. As the vice-president of the post secondary institution that was to share walls with the proposed pool, Behnke said college officials dove in head-first as well.
"It took several years, so it was not a one-person job," said Behnke following the recent unveiling of the new sign.
At the local level, he said a core of pool supporters — including his own family, as his two daughters were looking forward to swimming — helped to raise awareness and funds for the project.
Government funds, local fundraising and some much-needed grant funding helped to create the $2.6 million Portage Pool. The aquatic association — made up of community members and local government officials — was created at the same time. Behnke was the founding president of the association. The pool's first manager, Shelly Kochorek, worked with other community members to create the swim club. In 1992, local artist Marvin Straus created the club logo, and the Whitecaps Swim Club was afloat.
The first year, the Whitecaps had just a dozen young members. By the second year, the number had almost doubled to 20. By the third year, there were more than 40 young swimmers involved in the club.
"I was a competitive swimmer in my younger days," said Kochorek, who is now living in BC, and continues to coach a community swimming team that trains near Invermere, "so swimming was a huge part of my life, and back then, in small communities there wasn't much opportunity to swim."
Kochorek stayed at the pool for about 10 years, and now, almost 20 years later, she is pleased to hear that the Whitecaps are still going strong.
"A lot of times, it's other sports like hockey in the rural towns that conflict, but it's great to hear that the community is still behind the swim club," she said, attributing the success of the club and the facility to the strong support of the extended 'swim family' in the Lac La Biche area.
"I remember when we first opened, it was so well received from the start. We hit our capacity every day, and for that whole first summer, we were just slammed. It was fantastic," she said.
One of those early swim family members were the Hannans. Tom Hannan and his family were active in the club from the start. Tom and his wife Terry were part of the board and their daughters were among the first dozen members of the Whitecaps club.
Although he admits they have out of the loop for a while, Hannan said they still "carry the flag" for the importance of the local pool and swimming program. He says the need for an established swim club in a community like Lac La Biche is important for many reasons.
"Before the pool, families would have to drive to Athabsca or other places for swimming lessons," said Hannan, who is a firm believer that lessons save lives. "It's a place to teach a lifesaving skill. A lot of people see a pool as only a recreation venue, but I don't — It's the only place you can safely teach people to swim."
Over the last 26 years of operation and competition, the Whitecaps have welcomed hundreds of community families to their club and received many awards and medals for local swimmers and the community.
At their most recent event, four Whitecaps swimmers participated in the November 4-5 Poppy Swim Meet at the Kinsmen Sports Centre in Edmonton, and came away with personal best times. Whitecaps swimmers will be heading to the Blue and Gold meet coming up in Ft McMurray on November 24 as the tradition of local swimming continues.
Jen Okrainec, one of four coaches currently helping the 29 Whitecaps members this season says the club and their home-base pool are helping to create generations of capable swimmers and strong athletes. And they are always looking to recruit more.
"We are established, competitive, and looking for more members if swimming beyond swimming lessons is of interest to them," she said.
With ongoing discussions taking place at the municipal level about a new aquatic centre for the area, the Whitecaps, and the supporters of the last 26 years of local swimming are hoping their sport continues to make waves in the community.
"We see it growing and continuing," says Theroux, adding that new programs have been included into this year's club programming, bringing in even younger participants.
'This year, we added a new program called Learn To Race for five to seven year olds," she said. "We live around lakes, so it's such an important skill."
The New Learn To Race program was announced in late October and filled up registration within the first week.
For more details on the Whitecaps Swim Club, they do have a facebook page. You can also link to Portage Pool schedules.
