The crack of the bat echoed across Alexander First Nation last weekend for the first time in decades as the community marked the opening of what could become a major site for sports tourism.
About 50 softball fans and players celebrated Friday in Alexander as veterans of the Alexander Braves slow-pitch team officially opened the Echo Park sports centre by using a bat to hammer home plate into place on one of the park’s two new ball diamonds.
The Alexander Braves and the Northmen Yankees then launched into the first game of the 2019 National Indigenous Slow-Pitch Championship, which saw some 28 teams from across Canada compete for glory and cash prizes.
Alexander Coun. Joe Kootenay said the opening of this park meant that Alexander has a permanent ball diamond for the first time since the 1980s.
“It’s been 30 years since we’ve had a ball game in here in Alexander.”
Slow-pitch history
Slow-pitch has a long history in Alexander dating back to the formation of the Braves in 1958, who themselves had roots in the Sandy Lake Redskins, said Braves veterans Norm Kootenay and Howard White. The Braves played in regional tournaments as part of the North Central Alberta Baseball league, and produced many strong players.
“I can remember going head-to-head with Alberta major league teams and we used to beat them!” said White, with a laugh.
White and Norm said Alexander’s first ball diamonds were built in 1967 as a centennial project organized by local sports advocate Leo Kootenay, and were located where the big blue building south of the band office is today. Slow-pitch later fell out of favour, and the community’s last diamond closed some 30 years ago.
Echo Park got off the ground a few years ago when band members voted to finance it with $150,000 from the land surrender claim trust fund, Joe said. (Alexander established a trust fund around 2002 to manage funds from a multimillion-dollar land surrender claim settlement with the federal government. Each year, band members vote on how to use up to half of the interest earned by that fund for community projects.) That, plus $100,000 in other funds and four months of hard work led to the park being ready for opening day – barely.
“We just finished today, in the nick of time, because it’s been so rainy this year,” Joe said – there’s still a lot of churned up dirt around the diamonds.
Joe said the park’s name was a reference to the community’s traditional name, Kipohtakaw, which translates as “all bushed in,” and Alexander’s first chief.
“Our first chief’s name was Catchistahwayskum (also spelled Katstaweskum), which means 'he echoes when he walks,' ” he explained. The park, meanwhile, is “all bushed in,” as it was carved out of a stand of thick forest, which makes for some great echoes.
Joe told the crowd this history and noted that the jersey numbers of several historic Braves players has been painted on the practice circles of the diamonds as tributes.
“Let the echoes of the Braves of the past carry into the future.”
More to come?
Joe said the community hopes to develop Echo Park into a sports tourism hub. If they can find the grants and the weather co-operates, work could start next spring on a 200-stall fully serviced RV park, a 150-stall day camp park, and another four diamonds.
“Slow-pitch is very, very popular,” Joe said, and a park like this could host tournaments that would draw tens of thousands of tourism dollars to Alexander each weekend.
Norm and White said these new diamonds would let local youths play sports in town instead of having to go to Edmonton or Calahoo.
“I’m very excited they did this for our kids,” Norm said.
“Now they can come up and learn baseball.”
