Warm weather, fast-flowing water forestall river attractions

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This article was published 05/01/2016 (3634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mild temperatures could keep Winnipeg skaters and Warming Huts off the Red and Assiniboine River for the foreseeable future.

A combination of warm temperatures and fast-moving water along the rivers has created a perfect storm that has slowed the thickening of the river needed to open The Forks’ Red River Mutual Trail, Chelsea Thomson, a spokeswoman for The Forks North Portage Partnership confirmed Tuesday.

“It’s not just the mild temperatures but the speed that the river is flowing,” she said. “The moving water basically prevents it from freezing, but if it is really cold and moving fast then we can still build something, but the combination of the two is why there are so many open sections (of the river).”

Their plan B for the attraction is look at expanding the land trails for skaters and keeping the Warming Huts at the plaza of The Forks.

“We are still hoping to have a trail and we don’t know when that will be or what will come,” she said. “Our hope is sometime in the next three or four weeks we will open up something and it could just end up being the rinks in the ports, we are just playing the wait and see game.”

Typically the final touches of the Warming Huts are put in place in the final week of January as the architects bring them out onto the ice.

The huts may have to stay in the plaza area of the Forks until a new home can be found for them, Thomson said.

The Forks has experienced mild winters like this before, but typically gets a reprieve with a string of -20 C weather to freeze everything, she said.

“Mid- to late January is probably the average time that we open the trail,” she said. “The difference (this year) is that we aren’t even able to get on there to start building anything yet.”

Warm temperatures have also forced RAW:almond, an annual pop-up restaurant held on the Assiniboine River, inland.

Organizers announced over the weekend that it will move to the small, forested peninsula called South Point, located on the other side of the historic rail bridge.

However, Thomson said there is hope that this weekend’s chilly forecasts of -20 C could help the freezing process of the ice.

“A good, solid seven to ten days of (-20 C) will fix the majority of our problems and at least get us on the river,” she said, adding she can’t give a timeline as to when the river trails will open.

The length of the trail varies each year, depending on ice conditions. In 2015, the speed of the water on the Assiniboine forced the majority of River Trail to be built on the Red River. The Forks estimates there were 285,000 visits to the trail last winter.

In 2015, the trail officially opened Jan. 1, with a stretch from The Forks to the Queen Elizabeth Way bridge.

Currently open at The Forks is one kilometre of inland skating trails, as well two inland skating rinks, a toboggan hill and a snowboarding hill.

However, don’t put those skates away too fast.

According to Natalie Hasell, a warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada, the temperature in Winnipeg is set to plunge – a plunge the city typically feels between Christmas and New Year’s.

“This year that has been delayed, but we see it in the forecast starting on Thursday night and we really see the plunge Friday night and into the weekend,” she said, noting the temperature will dip into the -20 C sweet spot the river needs to freeze.

That cold snap is expected to continue for seven days, which could be the answer to the Forks’ prayers.

“Over the two weeks, starting at the end of this week, we see the transition to a colder air mass, where temperatures are expected to be within the -20 C to -25 C range for a week,” Hasell said. “We could get that week we need for the ice to freeze.”