Municipal partners create new website to promote interest in Gull Lake region
Several local authorities are working together to promote the Gull Lake area in southwest Saskatchewan as an attractive place for investment, relocation and visiting.
An important milestone in the collaboration was reached in late August with the launch of the new Gull Lake and Rural Regional Alliance website.
The current members of the alliance are the Town of Gull Lake and the rural municipalities of Carmichael, Gull Lake and Webb.
Lindsay Alliban, the Town of Gull Lake's economic development officer, said they began working on this initiative in early 2022.
“We started a conversation with our regional neighbours and saw where we could work together, what opportunities we might be able to share in,” she explained. “One of the things we identified was how we could promote the area as a destination for tourism, to relocate or to invest in, and that's where we created the website out of.”
She noted that previous collaboration between these local authorities provided a solid platform for the discussions.
“They've been working lots together in the past on things like recreation, some shared costs in the past and emergency services,” she said. “This area has definitely worked well together as a region on emergency services for a long time. So I think that was helpful for our efforts.”
She felt the issue of a diminishing population in rural communities was a consideration in this cooperative effort.
“I think there's just more of a focus on looking at how we can all work together to bump up our population numbers and make things more efficient and easier to be sustainable for the future,” she said. “And if we have a decreasing population, how can we bring more people in. So that common goal has allowed us to keep this conversation going and to recognize the potential if we do work together.”
Another aspect to this collaborative effort between these local authorities is the growing appreciation in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, of the benefits of living in smaller communities.
“People are realizing the potential for these rural areas and that's what we want to capitalize on,” she said. “Showing what we have to offer so that people who might want to leave the city will look at our community to relocate or to invest.”
A targeted sector support grant from the provincial government made it possible to carry out some activities in support of the collaboration process between the alliance members.
“It helped us facilitate some meetings between the four municipalities as well as helped us bring in some speakers who have experience and knowledge around working as a region,” she said. “Some presentations around projects that municipalities have worked on as a region just got all of us thinking in that mindset and gave us some inspiration.”
They also received a CanExport grant from the federal government, which is made available to community initiatives aimed at attracting foreign investment.
“That actually gave us the funds to make the website, which included also capturing some video and photos for the website so that we could portray the community and show the quality of life and the opportunities,” Alliban said.
A key benefit of the Gull Lake region is the connection to transportation networks, including the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway No. 37 as well as the railway line that runs past the town of Gull Lake and through the rural municipality.
“We have a really good location for transportation of goods,” she said. “So having a great geographical location allows for potential businesses to grow or expand to grow goods here and send them wherever they need to go. That is highlighted on our new website with some of our maps around transportation support and airports. It's one thing we wanted to highlight.”
Economic activities in the region are a benefit that can be attract interest from businesses looking for investment opportunities.
“Agriculture, of course, is a big one,” she said. “We have three large inland terminals here and that shows there is opportunity for location and for accessing commodities that are grown here. We also have a lot of exploration around helium and oil and gas in the area. So that's one thing we wanted to highlight as well.”
She felt affordability is a consideration for anyone looking for opportunities to relocate and the website refers to the benefits of living in the Gull Lake region.
“Besides industry, I would say affordable living is another one with all of the perks that people look for when they're looking for a place to live,” she said. “We have decent internet speed and we're having some updates coming. We have recreational facilities and we have access to health care.”
A key focus for the alliance members after the launch of the website will be to ensure the information is reaching a wide audience.
“I think this will have easy reach locally and in the southwest, but now we need to get it out to the whole world,” she said. “So we're working with the Ministry of Trade and Export to see how we can do that.”
Alliban added that there will be ongoing conversations to identify opportunities for the region.
“We want to keep in touch with our surrounding municipalities, even beyond just the RMs surrounding Gull Lake,” she said. “We like to keep in touch with our neighbouring communities and just keep everyone in the loop of what might be opportunities or challenges coming down our way so that we can be prepared and work together to be viable and sustainable communities.”