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Scott FireFit Championship returns to the Drumheller valley

FireFitDino

Drumheller is in for a heavy dose of fire fighting skills in September. 

The Scott FireFit Championship is returning to the valley for a second time. 

The event showcases skills generally obtained through fire fighting in emergency situations. 

This year’s FireFit Championship kicks off on Friday night, September 9, with the corporate challenge. 

The corporate challenge allows teams from corporate businesses to run the course without any gear on. Organizer of the event and Deupty Fire Chief Duane Bolin thinks that more groups will participate in this challenge. 

“It can be used as a team building outing. We have about 8 groups so far. We are hoping to cap it at 30 groups closer to the date.” 

The second day of the event  is where the excitement begins. Firefighters from across Alberta will make their way to Drumheller in hopes of qualifying for the national FireFit championship in Calgary on Wednesday, September 15- Sunday, September 18. 

Bolin explains the importance of the Drumheller challenge. 

“We are hoping to get some people from Ontario and Quebec because nationals are hosted in Calgary the following weekend. This is the last regional event before nationals. It is the last chance to qualify for nationals.  It is a timed event and if you place as a top winner in a regional event you get a bye to nationals. If you finish in a specific time frame, you qualify for a wild card in nationals.”

In 2011, Drumheller hosted a FireFit challenge and the response was extremely positive, leading Bolin to introduce FireFit to the valley a second time. 

“The event was very well received in 2011. There was great participation from the town and it is great when you get a crowd out, that makes it better for competitors as well as the fans. It is almost better in a small town than in a city, the fan support is better in a small town, in a big city it is just another thing going on.”

To host FireFit in Drumheller, it costs $10,500. The organizers have done a specific amount of fundraising for the event, and have received funding from sponsors.  

“A huge part of the town support is getting the course up and bleachers set up. The town definitely helps out. We could not put this on without that support,” says Bolin. 


Dickson Dam operators anticipate heavy rainfall

 

image rivet

 

Operators of the Dickson Dam are increasing flows as they anticipate more than 100 millimetres of rain in the next 24 to 48 hours upstream of the dam. 


However, these flows are not expected to cause any concerns downstream of the dam. 
The Town of Drumheller has been notified by operators that the flow into the Dickson Dam will increase by 700 cubic metres/second by early Sunday.
They expect the release from the dam to increase to 100 cubic metres/ second on Saturday and peak at 350 cubic metres/second on Sunday. 
This forecast is based on the latest information they have available and will be updated on Saturday. 

Trekcetera beaming to Drumheller

 

trekcetera museum

The largely Star Trek themed memorabilia museum Trekcetera in Vulcan, Alberta will be moving to Drumheller.

The move is about business for the museum, as they hope to attract more visitors and become the second year-round attraction in Drumheller, next to the Tyrrell.

“It’s just not happening here,” said co-owner Devan Daniels. “Vulcan is very much a seasonal town and we need more business to make the museum thrive and grow.”

Daniels said Trekcetera attracted between 3,500 and 4,000 visitors a year in Vulcan since opening there three years ago, and projects they’ll attract ten times more visitors by moving to Drumheller. 

The museum will be moving into the vacant building which previously held Sunshine Windows and Glass, on Highway 9, giving them triple the space of Trekcetera’s current location.

Two-thirds of the museum is Star Trek related, but the remaining third is devoted to a variety of other film and television memorabilia. One specifically Drumheller related item is a cape worn by Christopher Reeve in Superman 3, shot in southern Alberta in 1983.

The first Superman film was filmed partially in Drumheller in 1978.

Trekcetera also has an extensive collection of items from Steven Spielberg’s last television series Terra Nova, which centres on a futuristic society which recolonizes prehistoric earth in order to survive. They have all the costumes from the principal actors and several props from the show.

“Our museum is not strictly a dinosaur attraction but it’s a good attraction and people looking for other things to do besides dinosaurs will have another option in Drumheller,” said Daniels. 

Once Trekcetera moves to Drumheller, Daniels said they will focus on collecting items from local film history in order to represent the area better. 

“Drumheller is a great filming location for a wide variety of movies, and our museum is all about television and film memorabilia, so we’d fit in with that aspect of Drumheller,” he said.

Trekcetera will be closing in early September, and after a few well-deserved weeks off, the co-owners will begin the move after taking possession in October and complete renovations in time for an early spring 2017 opening.

“We’re very excited to be moving there and so far everyone we’ve talked to in Drumheller got really excited about the idea of setting up shop there,” said Daniels. “We’re feeling welcome and it’s a good feeling.”


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