With the temperatures easing up a bit over the next few days, families might be inclined to take their young ones on winter break to a slide like no other, at least in Alberta. Activate Arts Alberta sculpted the 115-foot slide at Legacy Park in Fort Saskatchewan, finishing up just before Christmas. Cliff Vacheresse of Activate Arts Alberta said it is the longest slide of its kind in Canada, as far as he knows, that doesn’t require a sled. “It’s a big payoff when we get to come out and see everybody enjoying it,” Vacheresse told CTV News Edmonton. “Often, we’re finishing these projects in the wee hours of the night because we have so much going on.” The slide took four to five people over the course of a week and a half to build. “It’s a lot of really long hours, working really hard, pushing very, very heavy ice up and down,” said Vacheresse. “It’s just really labour intensive, but it’s super gratifying work because we end up with these amazing products.” Activate Arts Alberta will be maintaining the slide for as long as it can last. “If it stays cold, we can actually recarve and reshape all aspects of the whole thing to make it almost like new several times over,” he said. “We will do so as long as it stays cold and it doesn’t disintegrate.” This is the fifth or sixth season Legacy Park has seen an ice slide. As each year passes, the slide gets longer. “We’re going for the really long, humungous slide,” said Vacheresse. “Last year, we hit 103 feet, and so we had to beat that this year and got to 115 feet. We hope to go longer next year.” With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Gates Guarin
