Tin Can Hill won’t be a territorial park. How about a city park?

The NWT government looks to have ruled out a territorial park on Yellowknife’s Tin Can Hill, but some residents are telling the city there’s another way.

At the start of May, Great Slave youth MLA Jack Penney urged the territorial government to turn Tin Can Hill into a territorial park when Youth Parliament convened.

His adult equivalent, Kate Reid, gave Penney’s statement a second airing in the legislature on Thursday and asked tourism minister Caitlin Cleveland about the prospect of Tin Can Hill gaining park status.

Parts of the hill, a prominent piece of Yellowknife green space, had been earmarked for a new Aurora College campus but that plan has since been shelved.

Reid asked Cleveland if she planned to meet with the city’s new mayor, Ben Hendriksen, and discuss the topic of making the hill a territorial park instead.

“ITI has no plans to pursue the establishment of a territorial park on Tin Can Hill,” Cleveland told Reid.

Reid said a park could be left to a community group to manage rather than the territory, potentially saving some money.

In that instance, Cleveland said, the territory need not be involved at all.

“Work like this could be done without the GNWT. The community could work with the City of Yellowknife,” the minister said.

“The City of Yellowknife would have the ability to deem that space a recreational park, and that wouldn’t need GNWT involvement in order to pursue that work. So that’s always an option as well.”

‘Regional park’ approach

The city itself has expressed no strong desire to establish a park at the site, but some residents are in favour of that move.

Bruce Laurich, a representative of the Tin Can Hill Conservation Committee, is scheduled to present to city council on Monday about having the city create a new park designation for the hill.

More: See the Tin Can Hill Conservation Committee presentation

“We propose that a new zone be created” in the city’s community plan, the conservation committee states in a presentation included among briefing documents for councillors.

The conservation committee calls the new designation “a regional park” that would “provide strong and unambivalent protection to the area as undeveloped natural parkland intended for outdoor recreation that requires little or no infrastructure.”

Not all of Tin Can Hill is city-owned land, which further complicates the issue. The conservation committee’s presentation notes that sections are under lease to mining firm Miramar – a lease that Gold Terra, an exploration company, has an option to acquire in the years ahead – and that land ultimately reverts to the GNWT if the lease is terminated.

The conservation committee advocates for the entire hill being nonetheless treated as a single zone while those land tenure issues are resolved.

One of the concerns expressed in the presentation is that without some form of protective designation, the hill might be built upon, for example as a location for more housing.

In March, the City of Yellowknife said Tin Can Hill is currently not earmarked for any immediate development.

Staff had used the term “developable land” to refer to the hill in some documents, but city manager Stephen Van Dine told council there were no plans to develop the site on the horizon.