Ongoing investment in Wasaga’s outdoor amenitiesWasaga Beach’s parks are a gathering spot for the community and keeping them in shape is a big job.

“We have 36 to 40 parks or about 200 acres in total,” parks foreman Andy Hulme says, while steering his truck south on Zoo Park Road.

Hulme has worked for the municipality for 38 years now and it’s his responsibility to coordinate the care and maintenance of the town’s greenspaces. Helping him with this task is a dedicated team of three full-time employees, as well as four eight-month contract workers and eight part-time summer students.

In addition to parking lot winter maintenance services for various town facilities, the winter months are when the parks staff get prepared for the job at hand during the warm season.

“We have all of our equipment and tools to get ready. So in the winter we do maintenance on them. And we go through each park and establish what needs to be done when winter is over,” Hulme explains. “When we do get into the parks to work, there is spring clean-up of leaves, branches, and garbage. We also do repairs to the turf; topdressing and over-seeding. Then we get to the point where we can start cutting grass.”

Select priority areas, including some “high visibility” spac-es, are cut on a weekly basis, while other parks have the grass cut on a two-week rotation, weather permitting.

“We go through the parks twice a week to inspect and pick up garbage,” Hulme notes.

Visits to each park are logged so staff have a record of their activities.

Playgrounds – there are 14 throughout the town – have monthly inspections done to ensure there are no issues with any of the equipment that children use.

“We check the swings, slides, and playground features for any type of breakage or loose handrails,” Hulme says.

Hulme slows his truck down on Klondike Park Road and pulls into the Wasaga Sports Park. He brings the vehicle to a stop on the far side of the parking lot.

“This site is roughly 100 acres,” he says. “It consists of four full-size soccer fields, another 11 mini-fields for soc-cer, and we also have five ball diamonds.”

He points to the southern part of the park, where horse-shoe pits are located.

“They are popular with residents,” Hulme says, adding that two beach volleyball courts and bocce ball courts are being constructed this year as well.

The sports park was started in the 1990s and over the years it’s had various pieces of sports infrastructure add-ed.

Another greenspace that town staff look after is Wasaga Beach Cemetery, located on the west side of Sunnidale Road, just south of Knox Road.

“We try to cut this grass on a weekly basis. And we do all the trimming, too,” Hulme says, walking down a row of graves. “Our full-time staff is responsible for all full burials and cremation burials. They do a good job at ensuring everything is ready.”

Spring is a busy time for the cemetery with burials and interments.

Hulme looks around and points out several red maples, as well as sugar maples, saying staff oversaw the plant-ing of these trees. The Town has been fortunate over the years with donations of trees from a local hardware store and a local bank branch. The labour to plant the trees was provided by community volunteers.

“It looks really nice out here,” he says.

Back in the truck, he heads for a residential neighbour-hood and stops at the entrance to a trail.

“In our town we have approxi-mately 20 kilometres of trail,” he says, adding this section is part of the Carly Patterson Memorial Trail, named in memory of former Wasa-ga Beach mayor Cal Patterson’s daughter.

Hulme says town staff grade the trails at least twice a year – usually spring and fall.

Other trail maintenance includes clearing fallen trees and repairs to washed out sections.

“We also cut the trails back,” Hulme says. “We try to keep a three-metre pathway on them.”

Nearby, Hulme stops at a small area with gardens and freshly cut grass.

“We call these spaces passive parks,” he says. “There isn’t any playground equipment in them. They are usually an empty lot. We build gardens in them and main-tain the grass. Sometimes we put a park bench in.” He says the passive parks add a nice element to the community.

There are more than a dozen small passive park-like settings through-out town. This includes Peace-keepers Park at Veterans Way and River Road West, as well as Goose Garden at Oxbow Park Drive and River Road West, a flower garden at Main Street and River Road East, along with Beck Square at Mosley and First Street North.

Nosing the truck onto Mosley Street, Hulme drives east and cross-es Schoonertown Bridge, pulling over next to the Wasaga Beach Community Garden at the corner

of River Road West and Fernbrook Drive.

“The garden has been here four years,” he says. “It’s kind of unique. I think it’s a great project. There are 56 4-by-12-foot plots.”

People reserve the plots each year so they have a space to grow pro-duce.

Just down Fernbrook Drive is Deer Trail Park. It has a small play field, a swing set, and some playground equipment. Hulme says park use fluctuates depending on the demo-graphic of the neighbourhood.

Another outdoor area the town looks after is Beach Area 1 and 2, including the collection of commer-cial spaces along Beach Drive.

Jenny Legget is beachfront coordi-nator and says the neighbourhood is unique.

“It’s a bit of a melting pot here,” she says. “You have people coming to use the beachfront, others want to shop. Some are local residents while others are day-trippers or cottagers.”

The town has a four-year manage-ment agreement with the province that allows the municipality to man-age Beach Areas 1 and 2.

The primary purpose of the agree-ment is to allow the town to have control over a prime tourist asset. The agreement is now in its second year. As well, in 2015, the town purchased most of the commercial buildings along Beach Drive in order to better direct their use.

The purchase included three spaces

that are used as restaurants and bars: The Dard, South Beach, and Bananas. Other units are home to such businesses as a paddle board and kayak rental operation, a tattoo and body art shop, various clothing shops, several eateries and souvenir stores.

Helping look after the beachfront is a property manager, a mainte-nance assistant, as well as students hired for the summer season.

Legget says taking care of the area is a big job. The beach is raked daily, and there is also daily garbage pick-up, plus on-going maintenance to the buildings and beachfront.

“Every spring we have to get them ready to go for the summer season; opening them up, turning on the water, turning on the hydro,” Legget explains. “And in the fall they all have to be totally winterized. Our operating sea-son is the May long weekend to Thanksgiving.”

Residents and visitors can learn more about the town’s parks and the beachfront

by visiting the municipality’s website at

www.wasagabeach.com