Better nature: FortWhyte Alive gets funding boost

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This article was published 25/06/2020 (2110 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As birds chirped and bison and their calves grazed nearby, Premier Brian Pallister announced $8.5 million for FortWhyte Alive on Thursday to help support its nature conservancy and education programs.

Breaking out of the solitude of the basement media room at the legislature for a change, the premier’s news conference was staged at the quiet prairie oasis that has helped generations of people get back to nature and learn about it.

“It’s been a leader in green education with a range of programming for all age levels, including seniors like myself,” Pallister said beside the lake at FortWhyte Alive, which is now surrounded by big-box stores and suburbia.

“As a farm boy, I grew up in nature. It’s something you take for granted, I suppose, when you’re a rural Manitoban,” he said. “When the opportunity is here for young people from an urban environment to see in a real way what nature has to offer, in terms of its beauty and the lessons it can teach us, I think that is awesome. This centre is so important in that.”

FortWhyte Alive is getting a retrofit and a new multipurpose building to attract more local visitors and ecotourism, said president and CEO, Liz Wilson.

“Now, more than ever, we see how important time spent in nature is,” Wilson said, referring to people pent up by the pandemic. “Every day here we see how people are restored by time spent outside, and the hope that they see in the resilience displayed in their surroundings here,” she said.

A $4-million contribution to the FortWhyte Forever Endowment Fund, held by the Winnipeg Foundation, is expected to generate close to $200,000 a year to consolidate and replace annual grants that supported it.

Another $4.5 million will go toward the $20-million FortWhyte Forever capital campaign, which has raised about $16 million, including $4.7 million from the federal government.

It’s to pay for the energy retrofitting of the interpretive centre exterior as well as heating, ventilation and air conditioning in interior spaces and exhibits. Work has already begun. The new Buffalo Crossing multipurpose public facility at the south end of FortWhyte will offer education and recreation, with adventure and nature play areas. Construction is to begin early next year and be completed in 2022.

“The renovation to our iconic interpretive centre, and the new building to come, will allow us to increase our capacity and enrich environmental education for Manitoba children, encouraging them to lead a life of environmental stewardship,” Wilson said.

“It will enable us to create new outdoor recreation and ecotourism opportunities that will draw more local and international visitors here each year to showcase our incredible province,” she said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca