The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor The Flin Flon and District Chamber of Commerce is turning back the clock on a downtown landmark. The chamber is having the large metal flowers at the Neighbours of the North Park removed and repainted this fall and winter. President Kory Eastman expected the intricate sculptures to be taken down in the immediate future. As of Wednesday afternoon, they still stood. Hudbay has agreed to sandblast the flowers, which in recent years have become plagued by rust. Several petals have also gone missing. Using a Hudbay 80th Anniversary Fund grant of nearly $10,000, the chamber will hire a professional to recoat the flowers with high-quality, rust-resistant paint. Reinstalled The flowers will be down throughout the winter and reinstalled at the park, located at the south end of Main St., next spring. Neighbours of the North Park includes the official flower of each province and territory, as well as a concrete base and the flags of Canada, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. When the $25,000 project was completed in the summer of 2005, it marked the end of the chamber's three-year quest to develop a tourist-drawing park. The idea first surfaced in 2002 with talk of establishing a park complete with the flags of all provinces and territories at the south end of Hapnot Lake. Mining equipment and a seating area were also bandied about. The concept evolved, and eventually came talk of merging the project with the Flinty Submarine Park. That didn't work out, either, and soon the flags were replaced with flower sculptures and the new border location was selected. At one point there was talk of installing backdrop fencing, benches, security cameras and a piece of art to represent M_tis culture, but none of that ever panned out.
