The old Skead volunteer fire rescue boat is now back in Ward 7 after being pulled from an online auction.
The 2005 Connor (Stanley) Pulsecraft 22’ aluminum fire rescue boat had been listed by the city at GovDeals.ca until Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée connected with city staff to get it taken down.
Area residents reached out to her on Tuesday afternoon after stumbling upon the auction item.
She reached out to city staff, who agreed to pull it from the online auction, by which time it had received 32 bids and hit more than $22,000. It has since been put back into storage for potential future use.
“There’s merit there in having further conversations about an alternative use for that boat, because it’s an expensive piece of equipment,” Labbée told Sudbury.com. “We’re open to having a conversation about what that (boat’s use) might look like.”
The boat was pulled from Lake Wanapitei in early 2020 and hasn’t been in use since that time, so the city followed policy and put it up for sale, the ward’s elected official explained.
Meanwhile, Labbée said a community effort was working in the background. Their goal was to use the boat as part of some kind of as-yet undefined safety program on Lake Wanapitei.
“We’re exploring the different options, so if we don’t have a boat, then we can’t have those conversations,” Labbée said.
The community is still raw about what has been perceived by some as the city giving Skead the short end of the stick in recent years, the area’s city council representative added.
The rescue boat was removed from its spot at Tony’s Marina on Lake Wanapitei in early 2020, and the Skead volunteer fire station closed in early 2022 when a vehicle badly damaged the building by backing into a pillar located between its two garages.
As part of a broader emergency services infrastructure renewal effort, the city proposed closing the Skead station permanently, which prompted the community to push back.
In June 2023, city council voted to keep the Skead station open, pending they’re able to attract enough volunteer members to sustain it. At the time, they only had one member, when the minimum requirement, according to the Fire Underwriters Survey, is 15.
Since that time, the city offered volunteer firefighter positions to 11 people in Skead. It remains to be seen how many of them go through the mandatory training that would allow them to begin responding to calls.
Meanwhile, Skead remains without a rescue boat.
Last year, Deputy Chief Nathan Melin told Sudbury.com the old boat was purchased “off the shelf” and wasn’t designed as a rescue boat.
People used to use whatever they had on hand for emergency rescues, he said, “but with liability these days and certification coming in, it makes it that much harder. ... You need the proper equipment to keep your responders safe so that they can do the appropriate rescue.”
The old boat was flagged as a health and safety concern unfit for rescue purposes, and removed in the spring of 2020.
Lake Wanapitei is now served by a design-built rescue boat stationed at the Minnow Lake station, which is centrally located to serve the city’s 330 lakes. A second rescue boat is stationed at the Long Lake station.
“The community and people who are users of the lake have their backs up about what’s going on,” Labbée said, adding that the fact the closest emergency response boat to Lake Wanapitei is now located in Minnow Lake “is alarming to people in the area.”
A community group is striving to bring the boat back to Lake Wanapitei.
“People feel a sense of ownership of that because it was at Tony’s Marina (on Lake Wanapitei) for so long,” she said.
“There are other reputable and successful program models (for community rescue groups) that are already out there, and that networking has already taken place so we have a really strong basis of what that use could be and what that can look like.”
Although the boat being put up for sale thrust their effort into the spotlight, Labbée said the community group is still in the early stages of planning their safety program, but that more details would come forward in the near future.
Sudbury.com reached out to the City of Greater Sudbury for comment, and received a written response indicating they are exploring other options for the boat outside of Fire Services.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
