`NOT WORTH THE MONEY'

Skateway wasn't an instant hit

When it was first proposed, the idea of skating on the Rideau Canal, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary, was not quite universally embraced. Or at least not its expense.

It was reported in the Ottawa Citizen on Jan. 12, 1971, a Tuesday, that a public skating rink on the canal, near the National Arts Centre, would likely be open by the weekend, and that a 10- to 20-footwide “skating trail” linking the 50-by-100-foot rink to Dow's Lake would be ready by the end of the following week.

“We'll see what public response is like,” said National Capital Commission assistant general manager J.A. MacNiven. “If it's good, there's a chance we'll clear a second skating area at Dow's Lake.”

The entire project, including maintenance, was expected to cost about $10,000 — the equivalent of about $65,000 today — leaving municipal controller Lorry Greenberg, who four years later was elected mayor, to muse aloud why the city couldn't have done it.

“We make an inquiry to our department (the city's recreation department) and are given many, many reasons why we can't build a rink on the canal,” he said. “Yet someone else can do it. If it was simply a question of money then I'd say OK, but the NCC is putting up a rink near the arts centre

Our (city) department didn't say they couldn't build the rink. They just said it wasn't worth the money.

complete with boards and outdoor lights for $3,500.”

Controller Ernie Jones, meanwhile, appeared to take offence at Greenberg 's remarks. “Our department didn't say they couldn't build the rink,” he noted. “They just said it wasn't worth the money.”

Jones added that the recreation department didn't have enough money to build all the rinks it wanted to in residential neighbourhoods, never mind one on the canal. “If the NCC can do it, then all I can say is amen.”

Amen. The skateway officially opened on Jan. 22, 1971, with NCC chairman Douglas Fullerton among the first to inaugurate what has become a wintertime mainstay.