Rivers restoration projects get a funding boost

RIVERS — The provincial government is providing $98,000 to help restore the Rivers train station, develop a bicycle museum on the site and expand bike trails in the community.

The train station is an important part of the province’s history, said Municipal Relations Minister Glen Simard, who was in Rivers on Wednesday.

“This project preserves a key piece of Manitoba’s heritage, and it creates new opportunities for tourism, culture and local economic and recreational development,” Simard, the MLA for Brandon East, told a gathering of about 25 people.

The funding, which is coming from the provincial program From the Ground Up — Safe Healthy Communities for All, is also being used toward researching and producing the Sekine bicycle story with Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan, for the planned museum.

Rivers hosted a Sekine bicycle factory for the Japanese company from 1973 to 1981, shipping parts by rail across North America via the town’s train station.

Simard said the train station and former bicycle factory — which is still commemorated with a mural along Main Street — are symbols of the strength, resilience, culture and history of the municipality.

He said the restoration of the station, which will include a virtual and physical museum and more amenities for riders, is an important way to honour the past.

The station’s main building remained shuttered Wednesday, with concrete crumbling from its base.

Donna Morken, chair of the Rivers train station restoration and heritage committee, couldn’t say how much the restoration of the facility will cost, or give a timeline for repairs.

“You have no idea how excited we are,” Morken told Simard. “Our committee is absolutely thrilled to receive such good news for our community.”

She said officials will now need to determine how to allocate the funds. Some of the money will go toward a research project to determine how best to develop rural communities in other parts of the province.

The director of the Rural Development Institute at Brandon University, Wayne Kelly, who is leading the research project, said the funding will aid researchers on the ground in Rivers.

“As we work with community groups that are doing this type of work on the ground, we’re going to be developing the training and some of those techniques to sort of train other community groups around research skills on the ground, so that they don’t necessarily need a PhD to come in and do community research,” Kelly said.

Other Westman, Interlake and francophone communities could be part of the pilot project as it expands, he said.

“What do they need both in terms of resources and supports from places like Brandon University, like the Rural Development Institute?” Kelly said. “And how we can all help our rural communities in Manitoba sort of continue to grow and develop as they want to direct it?”

— Brandon Sun