He said “in the last couple of weeks, a person or persons has been accessing the north shore trail with a 4x4 vehicle and has been tearing up the cross country ski trails.” The Battlefords River Valley Board has been aware of the issue and attempts have been made to fix up the trails after the damage. But Bater noted it was difficult. “Once the base of the trail is gone it’s hard to develop again,” he said. Bater said the activity of driving vehicles down the Battlefords River Valley was “not legal, and people shouldn’t be doing it because it’s damaging the ability of others to enjoy those kind of venues.”
But while COVID-19 was something that caught a lot of people by surprise, the pandemic was something the city saw coming. As early as January, the events in China and elsewhere around the world where the still-unnamed novel coronavirus was wreaking havoc were noticed by city officials. Before the pandemic was even declared in March, the city was working on a pandemic plan and they had also struck a deal with Battleford for a joint administrative committee to deal with the pandemic response. A temporary pandemic policy, based on an existing document that was already in place at City Hall, was approved at council March 9 just days before the first COVID-19 case hit Saskatchewan. At the council meeting, city manager Randy Patrick and director of protective services Lindsay Holm cited the urgency of getting something in place right away; their concern that something big was about to happen proved prophetic.
For the Battlefords a case could be made that it was our worst year ever worse than even the cryptosporidium and oil spill years and not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic that prompted shutdowns, economic devastation, and no shortage of loss of life in the province and world. It was a year in which one event after another ended up postponed or called off. It was also a year of devastating tragedy: the loss of a beloved Battleford NHL player, a tragic local murder-suicide, and ongoing and notorious criminal cases in the local courts. But look on the bright side: at least North Battleford isn’t the “Crime Capital of Canada” anymore, ending a long streak at the top of the Crime Severity Index this year.