Climb Yukon is getting set to scale the heights of a new building.

The organization recently received $71,958 in Tier 2 funding from the government of Yukon’s Community Development Fund (CDF).

The funding will go toward hiring an operations manager for the climbing gym in the new jointly-run climbing/gymnastics facility currently under construction in the Whistle Bend subdivision in Whitehorse. 

According to the Yukon government, the funding is to “implement aspects of the association’s business plan in order to launch a financially sustainable community climbing gym.”

Climb Yukon Head Coach and Sport Coordinator Gerard Garnier said the funding is very important to Climb Yukon.

“Our board right now is mostly exclusively volunteer, and so this grant is huge for us. It’s allowing us to hire our first facility employee.” 

Lotteries Yukon has also come through for Climb Yukon with funding for the new building to the tune of $235,000. 

“Without CDF and lotteries, the facility wouldn’t open,” related Garnier. “It means everything to us, really.” 

Garnier said the Lotteries Yukon funding is “basically covering all of our startup costs in the facility, like buying all the equipment we need.” 

Lotteries Yukon also kicked in $17,000 in funding last year for new equipment like climbing holds for Climb Yukon. 

“They’ve been huge for us,” said Garnier. 

The CDF grant is to hire a contractor – the pre-opening operations manager – whereas the lotteries funding will go towards operation of the climbing facility’s first few months. 

Garnier said the intention is to have the pre-opening operations manager become the facility manager. 

“The CDF is really to hire a person to create procedures, purchase all the stuff, everything that has to do with opening a new facility.” 

The first round of applications for the position closes on August 5. Garnier said the intention is to run interviews in the first half of August and have someone in place by Sept. 1.

According to Garnier, the skill set required for the position is beyond what you would normally ask of a facility manager. 

“We’re looking for someone, honestly, in an ideal world who has a climbing background.” 

“But the experience required is very much more based on their business acumen. Someone who’s just able to do an extremely broad skill set, but for sure, it’s a huge asset for us if they go climbing, understand climbing.” 

Garnier summed it up by saying, “We want a project manager who also happens to love rock climbing.” 

He added they are hoping to get some strong candidates from inside and outside the Yukon. 

As far as the new building itself goes, Garnier said, “I think the government, us and the Polarettes are working to make sure this facility is sustainable and thrives.”

Garnier said Climb Yukon won’t be owners of the new facility. Instead, it will be government-owned. 

“We’re just running the climbing facilities and the building is not ours. We’re just going to be renting and running the facility.” 

Garnier said the logistics of how the building will be run are still being worked out, including whether the Yukon Government or the City of Whitehorse will own the building in the long term. 

“At the end of the day, it’s like we’ve got two nonprofits (Climb Yukon and the Polarettes), YG and the city that are all just invested in ensuring that we have this successful climbing and gymnastics facility. And we don’t really know what that will look like.” 

Garnier added, “our focus right now is getting that contractor in place so that they can start sorting through our business plan and taking it from paper to active basically”.

Garnier said as far as he knows, the timeline for the completion of the building is still on track. 

“The building’s framed, roof is on, and walls are going up.” 

Garnier added it looks like they’ll be completing the outside of the building soon and working on the inside through the winter. 

He said the building is expected to be completed by the end of March or beginning of April in 2025.

The federal government announced in June 2023 that it is contributing $31.6 million to the project. 

The facility is expected to have a total area of more than 3,000 square metres. 

Garnier added that the new facility will make a huge difference for Climb Yukon. 

“We’re bursting at the seams in our current space. We want to be offering so much more programming than we’re able to with the space we have.

“We’ve been so lucky to have Porter Creek (Secondary School) let us use their facility, but at the same time we’re going to be able to have so much more programming for both youth and competitive programming.”

Climbing camps and working with schools in Learn to Climb programs are also on the horizon in the new building. 

Garnier added the facility will be “another place for youth and adults during our long cold winters to have productive activity indoors”. 

Last year, Climb Yukon had around 300 members, including drop-ins and around 50 kids enrolled in the youth programs. It’s hoping to increase that number to 65 this year. 

“But in the long run, I think, we’re talking like hundreds of kids probably going through once we’re in the new facilities,” said Garnier. 

He added, “we’re just so happy and excited for this and can’t wait, really”.