Brief History
Bounded by First Lake Drive, Glendale Drive, Cobequid Road, and Metropolitan Avenue, the trail around First Lake make up a portion of Sackville Lakes Provincial Park. The land surrounding the lake is home to the Sackville Sports Stadium, the Kinsman Park, the Sackville Arena, the Bingo Centre, Taiso Gymnastics, the Sack-A-Wa Canoe Club and the Eddie Leblanc Baseball Field. If you are looking for information about Kinsmen beach, please click this link https://www.halifax.ca/rec/Beaches.html.
The First Lake Greenway Trail system – Active transportation and recreational trail construction. In 30 plus years, we have raised over $1 million dollars to construct approximately 7 kilometers of fully accessible trail for the community in the public green space (owned by HRM) around First Lake. After many years of work (including public consulting, meetings with HRM, fundraising, requests for proposals, planning, project management, etc.), we have finally completed the trail within the greenway on the south side of the lake. For the Visually impaired The Glen Slauenwhite Trail Section has installed Tactile Signs.
Required Elements in the Upkeep and Safety of the First Lake Trail
1. Maintenance – Once the trail is built we then have to maintain it. We now hope to upgrade the original trails, many of which are over 50 years old, to bring them up to current standards. This is something we have been doing since the first section of trail was completed. We apply for funding from HRM every year. Some work is small and we can do it ourselves, however, bigger jobs we have to contract out. Big storms or heavy rains are always a concern. Maintenance in particular is a project that needs a lead and volunteers to work on it.
2. Benches – The older benches are also now in desperate need of refurbishment. This project is open to new volunteers.
3. Signage – Is an important part of the trail system, there are several trail heads with larger maps and directional signs are scattered along the trail. Currently we need replacement signage on the original trail for signs that have been lost or damaged and new signage needs on the south side of the trail. The Signage Committee has been busy working with Fathom studios on updating mapping and signage content. We are excited to continue the process and the start of the implementation of the project.
4. Dog Waste Bag Dispensers – There are also a lot of smaller jobs like refilling the doggie doo bag dispensers at the trail heads for example. This project is open to new volunteers.
5. Water Stewardship – Over the years, our water stewardship program had ups and downs. This is only because we did not have anyone to lead it (no volunteers with an interest in this area). In recent years we have significantly improved in this area and we now have a very strong Water Stewardship Committee.
The committee leads water quality testing to benchmark and report on various important indicators of lake health, including temperature, presence of metals and E. coli. From the committee’s inception, it took over two years of research, planning, training, fundraising and networking to get to the point of “starting” to test the water quality. We now have several years’ worth of data from monitoring the lake at key locations from May to October. Check out the Water Stewardship section of the website for more information.
6. Administration – The administration side of any group is not the most exciting part but it is so important to the group running smoothly! This includes recording meeting minutes, sending emails and updates, scheduling meetings, registration/organization for the AGM, maintaining our standing with the registry of joint stocks, managing memberships, etc. Currently, the group’s administration is handled by the group Secretary and the Co-Chairs. If these tasks align with your skillset and you are looking for a low-demand role within the FOFL society, we always welcome new volunteers!
7. Communications/Social Media – We have this website as well as a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Firstlake). The website is updated periodically with the most up to date information on events and activities provided on the Facebook page.Facebook messenger is reviewed at least weekly for maintenance issues, lost and found items, questions and concerns with the watershed. Facebook messenger is managed by the Secretary. We also have a group email address that directs questions, queries, concerns, accolades, and/or community collaboration related to the greater Friends of First Lake Society to the Co-Chairs of the society. The email address is friendsoffirstlake@gmail.com and is checked weekly. If you’ve got something to contribute, we’d love to hear from you!
8. Education/Community Events – We have a long history of holding community clean ups and we have found a great way to do that and promote education at the same time by enlisting the help of High School students. Along with a cleaner shoreline, hopefully this will help instil volunteerism at a young age. We also support other community groups who wish to hold community events around First Lake. We are hoping to continue running education and community events each year, but these projects need volunteer(s) to help.
9. Finance – A special shout out to Barb Wilson who is our treasurer and has been our treasurer for over a decade! Like many members, she works full time so we are very lucky to have her managing our budgets, tax returns, financial statements etc. in her free time! In fact, she was named one of the Sackville volunteers of the year.
10. Fundraising – None of our projects can go forward without funding to support it. We have been fortunate enough to receive funding from all levels of government over the years but this takes time and effort. It’s quite a skill to be able to fill in applications and proposals in such a way as to give us the best chance of being selected. It also involves developing relationships with the employees from the various government offices to help guide us through the process. In many cases funding is dependant on securing other sources of funding and it can be heartbreaking to go through the whole process only to be turned down in the end. However, we would be very happy to have help and more people to research other sources of funding. Please contact us if you would like to volunteer.