White Bear First Nations holds grand opening for Splash Park
August 5, 2025, 10:53 am
Ashley Bochek
White Bear First Nation held a grand opening for their newly developed splash park on the east side of the First Nation.
The Splash Park will allow kids to enjoy summer activities outside and beat the heat close to home.
Bernadette Akachuk of White Bear First Nation led the project for kids on the reserve to enjoy during the summer months.
“I am very excited. I always thought the kids could use something like this.
“I never dreamt that we’d have something like this, never even thought about it ever, but you see the ones in the town and the cities and you wonder how it works and who manages it. Well it’s just an idea from people in the community.”
The Splash Park project began seven years ago. “I started working on it in November 2018, and then it’s a process of getting grants, fundraising, and finally seeing it come to life. They started building it last year and recently just finished and added some grass,” Akachuk said.
She explains the government grants utilized for the splash park.
“The Federal-Provincial ICIP program contributed $355,000. Another program gave us $100,000. I asked one of our programs here if they could lend us $199,000 and it was so nice that they did because then I was able to put that down—with ICIP I was able to get it back.”
Future development
Bruce Standingready of White Bear First Nation says the First Nation is working on future development for kids activities near the splash park.
“We’re thinking of trying to build a ball diamond by the splash park, and a basketball court—it’s supposed to be a recreation area. Hopefully in the future we’re going to have a new subdivision near these recreational areas.”
Chief Pasap proud of Splash Park
Chief Jonathan Pasap attended the grand opening last Wednesday.
“It’s great to see this open up for our children, our youth,” Chief Pasap said. “It’s more accessible for the youth. Because of socioeconomic issues some may not have vehicles or their parents are away, this allows the kids themselves to come here, and teenagers can come here. It’s in walking distance, biking distance instead of having to go all the way to the lake resort where there are other splash parks there. This is great to see for their health and well-being.”
Chief Pasap says they are planning future developments to grow youth recreational activities on the First Nation.
“We have of course the splash park now and the outdoor hockey rink. We want to make more playground structures, make this a hub for our youth, so that’s our goal.”
He says he is committed to further development, “It is always about improving our health, our wealth, and the unity for our people. We’re about 17,000 acres in area and we want to make this sports and rec, health and well-being, cultural lands, and we want to make cultural lands for our powwows.
“We have subdivision planning for housing, infrastructure, we have some economic development plans as well with the lake resort and around the casino area too. These are many ideas and plans we have to improve the health and wellness of our people.”
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