OXBOW - A line of children and teens, with their towels and phones out taking selfies, came early to wait excitedly outside the doors of the Oxbow Pool for the opening day of the season.
Meanwhile, recreation manager Lane Nicholls was checking the levels of the pool to make sure they were acceptable before letting everyone in.
“It is a balancing act to get the right levels of free chlorine, and the sun and heat eats it up,” he said.
Nicholls explained the delicate process that can change throughout the day, which is why they test the water every three hours.
This is a much different start to the season then it looked like it was going to be only a couple of months ago.
“Pool planning for staff starts in April and we knew we were going to be short.”
Nicholls shared the board’s initial concern about not having enough staff for the pool’s scheduling, due to losing senor lifeguards and Saskatchewan making a province-wide decision to change the required course to become a lifeguard, from the Red Cross to Lifesaving.
This change in requirements made many people’s previous training obsolete.
“But we were lucky this year, the community really came through. We told them our concerns on Facebook getting the word out and a lot of juniors signed up,” said Nicholls.
This will help with this year but also hopefully years to come. The pool has offered to cover half the price of the new course if someone become a lifeguard this year and the other half next year if the lifeguard returns.
A lot of hours have gone into getting it ready. Repairs were made to the pool lining and general maintenance.
“We had to clean the pool from the winter, get out all the muck and dust. It takes two weeks to hose it down and squeegee and use the shop-vac on it. But the cleaner we can get the pool at the start, the cleaner it will stay,” said Nicholls.
After it was cleaned it then took three days to be filled with town water.
On Aug. 11, for the cost of a swim pass, people can come and enjoy a pool party where the band Winsome Kind will perform and food will be available for purchase.
