Skating on Woodland Park pond is becoming a memory of winters past.  

The nostalgia-inducing spot that once reliably froze over and brought families together has offered subpar skating conditions over the past decade, leading state and municipal officials to rethink how it gets used.  

Warmer winters have prevented the 4 inches of ice that the city needs to safely clear snow from forming on top of the water. In the past, crews used snow blowers and sprayed water over the ice to create a smooth surface before inviting the public to enjoy it.   

“With our weather patterns, it's just not cold enough to develop enough ice to put equipment to do that type of maintenance,” said Parks and Recreation Director Chad Fincher.  

These days, residents shovel snow on their own if they want to skate. Fincher watched people flit across the pond for about a week this winter before the ice softened into slush, but he remembered past winters when it would stay frozen for a month.  

“The season just keeps shrinking,” Fincher said.  

The Flathead Valley Hockey Association hasn’t been able to host pond hockey for the past 10 years because the weather hasn’t created safe ice. The association — which owns the Woodland Ice Center — previously organized pond hockey at Foys Lake and, once, at the Woodland Park pond, according to Cara Ryan Lemire, the association’s president. 

Since recent winters haven’t produced conditions suitable for a natural ice rink, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks cast out a proposal to partner with the city to turn the pond into an easily accessible place for children to learn to fish.  

“This is a place where families who maybe don’t have the means or the time to run up the Middle Fork or get out on Flathead Lake or one of our other lakes but they want to get outside, they want their kids to go fishing,” Dillon Tabish, former spokesperson for Region 1, said at a January Kalispell City Council meeting.  

Similar projects around the Flathead Valley have proven popular. Tabish pointed to the River’s Edge Park Community Fishing Pond that Fish, Wildlife and Parks helped fund. The agency stocks the site with native westslope cutthroat trout a couple times a year. Shady Lane Pond in Evergreen and Dry Bridge Slough in Kalispell are also stocked with fish.  

Councilors in January seemed interested in Tabish’s proposition. Mayor Ryan Hunter said that if ice skating was no longer viable, it was time to find another purpose for the pond.  

The catch is that Woodland Park pond is only 3 feet at its deepest point, so it would need to be dredged to around 11 or 12 feet in some areas. Councilor Sid Daoud raised safety concerns about people he expects will still try to skate on the pond.   

Councilors agreed that if the project moves forward, the city will need to post signs and arrange for public outreach to warn people that a deeper pond would pose greater risks if someone were to fall through the ice.  

While the state agency has agreed to contribute funding — likely using money designated for creating family fishing opportunities — it will not foot the entire bill. How the remaining expenses will be paid remains uncertain.  

This isn’t the first time that Fish, Wildlife and Parks has tried to hook Council with the idea.  

Councilor Kyle Waterman recalled Tabish’s visit to City Hall back in 2020, which occurred as the city struggled to manage a rapidly growing population of domestic waterfowl that had overrun Woodland Park and became a nuisance to visitors.  

The state agency worried that the enormous amount of duck and geese waste was contributing to nutrient loading in the pond, which could harm water quality. Before any fish could be stocked, the city first had to deal with its duck problem.  

In response, the community rallied together to get every domestic bird adopted. Because of the effort, nutrients loading was likely reduced, according to Kenny Breidinger, a biologist with Fish, Wildlife and Parks.  

If Council did choose to move forward on dredging the pond, tests would still be conducted to assess water quality among other factors, Breidinger said.  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 406-758-4407 or [email protected].  If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.