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Brodie Building a Bike Park with the Tseshaht First Nation |
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Saturday, 10 November 2007 |
By Amber Zirnhelt, Brodie Team
Just last summer I was working with youth in the Tseshaht First Nation
in Port Alberni, BC on developing a youth vision and ideas for
community projects. In just over one year from when the youth came up
with the idea to build a mountain bike skills area and trail near their
youth centre, their vision and dream has materialized.
Reflections on the build
It is 8:30 am on a summer morning, and when I arrive at the Tseshaht
Youth Centre Jay Hoots, and his crew including his co-worker Owen, two
community-based machine operators and youth from the Tseshaht community
are hard at work moving dirt and raking. Grabbing an old pair of bike
gloves, quickly I join the crew and start smoothing out the landing for
one of the jumps.
Looking back on the bike park, I am inspired by the way the project
unfolded. During my work with the Tseshaht community on the University
of British Columbia Coastal Community Project, I worked with youth on
visioning around education and community development. Often after the
action research project activities finished for the day, I went out
riding with youth from the community and they talked about wanting some
dirt jumps and a skills area in their community.
With support from Band Council, I worked with the recreation and youth
centre coordinators to help the youth develop a plan for the bike park.
After discussions with Jay Hoots about the park ideas, he was quick to
jump on the community initiative to get more youth riding bikes. Hoots
created the concept for a summer youth work program based on some ideas
he had begun to develop from his projects with the Dirt Club - a
non-profit initiative in North Vancouver designed to assist kids in
working with local municipalities to build bike parks.
As part of the program, three youth and a supervisor were hired by the
Tseshaht First Nation to work for the summer building the trail and
park. The work crew was trained in sustainable trail design and
building techniques and set-off to complete a short free-ride trail
loop, dirt jumps and a pump track. The park opened in late August with
over thirty community members including adults, youth, and kids out to
test out the new skills area. Already I’ve heard the community talking
about phase two and adding some wooden features to the park.
Thanks to support from Brodie Bikes and bike building by Paul at
Cutting Edge Sports, the youth centre and several youth involved with
the project are now sporting new Brodie Bikes.
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