Yellowknife recruiting lifeguards as new pool sees thousands of users within first month
City says the aquatic centre has had over 18,500 visits since it opened in May
The City of Yellowknife is recruiting more lifeguards to work at the newly opened Aquatic Centre after the facility saw thousands of users dive in within its first month of operation.
Saxon Chung, a spokesperson for the city, wrote in an email that as of June 5, the pool had seen 18,500 visitors — nearly the population of Yellowknife.
"Since its opening on May 5, the Aquatic Centre has seen a notable increase in usage compared to the former Ruth Inch Memorial Pool," he wrote.
In response to the new pool's popularity, the city is looking at attendance trends and peak times so it can adjust staffing to accommodate the surges.
Chung said this means there may be times when users have to wait before being admitted into the pool.
"Our Aquatic Centre team relies on both full and part-time employees, many of whom are students, to help with [peak] and seasonal increases. As you can appreciate, June is a busy time for students," Chung wrote.
"We ask for the public's understanding and patience as we offer student employment and support academic success."
According to the concept design for the Aquatic Centre, the Yellowknife pool is required to have one lifeguard for around every 35 swimmers. That ratio changes as the number of swimmers increases, so to accommodate about 300 swimmers, the pool would need five lifeguards on deck.
Chung wrote that the pool had doubled the number of part-time staff at the aquatic centre in the past year, but is still looking for more.
Building capacity in the North
Madison Lalonde is the director of public education and communications with the N.W.T. and Alberta Lifesaving Society branch.
She says her organization hopes to help the N.W.T. build its capacity to train and certify new lifeguards.
"We're very excited for Yellowknife. We're happy to support them with opening their new facility," she said.
"We're committed to supporting them in the future regarding drowning prevention initiatives, building up their capacity by providing those leadership courses and hoping that they can get those swimming lessons in there because learning how to swim is extremely important — because anyone can drown, but no one should."
Lalonde says the N.W.T. did see a dip in lifeguard certification numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the numbers have returned to what they were pre-pandemic.
However, pre-pandemic the territory had a pool with capacity for about 274 patrons, according to the concept design for the Aquatic Centre. The new pool can hold almost double that number — that is, if it has enough staff to watch them all.