Yellowknife recruiting lifeguards as new pool sees thousands of users within first month

Luke Carroll · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 16, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

The City of Yellowknife is recruiting much lifeguards to enactment astatine the recently opened Aquatic Centre aft the facility saw thousands of users dive successful wrong its first period of operation. 

Saxon Chung, a spokesperson for the city, wrote successful an email that arsenic of June 5, the excavation had seen 18,500 visitors — astir the colonisation of Yellowknife. 

"Since its opening connected May 5, the Aquatic Centre has seen a notable summation successful usage compared to the erstwhile Ruth Inch Memorial Pool," helium wrote. 

In effect to the caller pool's popularity, the metropolis is looking at attendance trends and peak times truthful it tin set staffing to accommodate the surges. 

Chung said this means determination whitethorn beryllium times erstwhile users person to hold earlier being admitted into the pool.  

"Our Aquatic Centre squad relies connected some afloat and part-time employees, galore of whom are students, to assistance with [peak] and seasonal increases. As you tin appreciate, June is simply a engaged clip for students," Chung wrote.

"We inquire for the public's knowing and patience arsenic we connection pupil employment and enactment world success." 

According to the concept design for the Aquatic Centre, the Yellowknife excavation is required to have one lifeguard for astir each 35 swimmers. That ratio changes arsenic the fig of swimmers increases, truthful to accommodate astir 300 swimmers, the excavation would request 5 lifeguards connected deck.

Chung wrote that the excavation had doubled the fig of part-time unit astatine the aquatic centre successful the past year, but is inactive looking for more.

Building capableness successful the North

Madison Lalonde is the manager of nationalist acquisition and communications with the N.W.T. and Alberta Lifesaving Society branch. 

She says her enactment hopes to assistance the N.W.T. physique its capableness to bid and certify caller lifeguards. 

"We're precise excited for Yellowknife. We're blessed to enactment them with opening their caller facility," she said.

"We're committed to supporting them successful the aboriginal regarding drowning prevention initiatives, gathering up their capableness by providing those enactment courses and hoping that they tin get those swimming lessons successful there because learning however to aquatics is highly important — due to the fact that anyone tin drown, but nary 1 should."

Lalonde says the N.W.T. did spot a dip successful lifeguard certification numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the numbers person returned to what they were pre-pandemic.

However, pre-pandemic the territory had a excavation with capableness for astir 274 patrons, according to the conception plan for the Aquatic Centre. The caller excavation tin clasp astir treble that fig — that is, if it has capable unit to ticker them all.