By Adam Frisk Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
After about three years of work at Skyline Park, the Haliburton Rotary Club is turning its attention to the remaining pieces of the rejuvenation project. With most of the major construction work out of the way, the club is asking the community to help complete the park by 2027.
The club launched its “Reach for the Sky” fundraising campaign on Sept. 11, inviting people to contribute toward landscaping and park amenities. Rotary said the campaign had already brought in $6,600 in pledges in the first week alone.
The campaign follows a busy summer up on the slope overlooking the village. Crews finished building a second timberframe picnic shelter, while the Ministry of Transportation, which owns the land, installed a permanent, year-round accessible washroom facility.
Accessibility has been a focus of the work, Rotary explained. A new upper viewing platform is now about 80 per cent complete, and a new path for visitors who find the steep trek down to the original lookout difficult.
“We wanted people who aren’t able to, or just don’t want to, walk down to the lower viewing platform to still enjoy the view,” Ursula Devolin of the Haliburton Rotary Club, explained. “I was up there, and it was really nice to see people reading all the signage, even some locals who didn’t really know that history was up there.”
Despite rising material costs in the construction industry, the club said the overall budget is on track. Some parts of the project went slightly over, but local contractors helped the bottom line by donating time and supplies at cost.
Because Rotary approves its budget yearby-year rather than drawing from a single multi-year bank account, the club needs some community support to complete the final phases.
“When we take on a five-year plan, it actually has to be approved year-by-year, so we can only use our budget year-toyear,” Devolin said. “We’re just looking for community involvement so we can finish it off.”
Next season, the club plans to enlarge the main lookout.
“Right now it’s quite small, you can probably only fit four to six people in there,” Devolin noted. “We want people to just stand and see, take photographs, or even use it for weddings or big family photos.”
The final project will include a new welcome sign, an Indigenous land acknowledgment following consultation with Curve Lake First Nation, a Rotary International Peace Pole, and hand-carved stone sculptures by Rotarian John Beachli.
Donations can be made by cheque to the Rotary Club of Haliburton or via e-transfer to haliburtonrotary@gmail.com (memo: “Skyline”). Contributions of $500 or more qualify for a spot on a permanent donor plaque, with fundraising continuing through the fall and into next spring.
