With snow blanketing Ottawa, tobogganing season is here, but there’s one popular sledding hill in Mooney’s Bay that isn’t open.
Each winter, the city installs temporary fencing on the hill to prevent sledding, but councillors and residents have been looking for solutions to allow the site to reopen safely.
Earlier this year, the city approved spending $150,000 to fund an external engineering and landscaping feasibility analysis to determine what could be done to make the hill safe.
“We are going to go more in-depth to look at specific recommendations to make this hill safer for tobogganing,” said area councillor Riley Brockington.
“The city is struggling to find an engineering firm that can do the work. However, we remain optimistic that an assessment can be done, that recommendations can be made on how to improve safety at this hill in particular and that it will come back to the committee for a final decision,” Brockington said.
The Mooney’s Bay hill has been closed to sledding since the winter of 2017. In 2021, a young girl died in hospital after her sled slammed into a pole at the bottom of the hill.
City crews have fenced off the hill, where there are signs indicating sledding is banned in the area. The hill was quiet on Saturday with no families in sight.
Brockington is hoping the work will be done soon so the hill can reopen for winter.
“Hopefully that will happen but it has to be assessed and the committee will need to see that report and make ultimately the final decisions on what to do,” he said.
Ottawa is a popular tobogganing destination for young families. There are 70 areas designated in the nation’s capital for approved sledding hills, according to a memo from the City of Ottawa.
Brockington says the city hopes to have a report back in the new year, but that hasn’t been confirmed.