Money part of a $2.2-million spend by NOHFC to help tourist facilities across Ontario.

THUNDER BAY – Tracy Hurlbert is one happy camper.

Hurlbert, confined to a wheelchair, is ecstatic to hear the Wilderness Discovery Handi-Capable Centre is reopening in 2019, thanks in part to a $400,000 grant from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation that will help make upgrades to electrical and plumbing systems and build a new accessible gazebo and playground.

Calling the centre her oasis, Hurlbert said its closure left a void in her life and those of the physically challenged in the Thunder Bay area.

She’s just glad the former provincially owned facility will continue to live on.

“It’s nice to be able to forget for a while that you have a disability,” Hurlbert said on Thursday, during a news conference announcing the funding for the Shabandowan centre, along with 13 projects across the region, totaling $2.2 million in spending.

Hurlbert said the Wilderness Discovery Hand-Capable Centre is the one recreational site in the area she can visit and not have to fear whether it will be accessible or not.

“You don’t have to take into consideration the wheelchair because the people out there have already taken it into consideration,” she said.

“It was built and designed with people with physical disabilities. There’s nothing I can’t do out at camp, except walk.”

The centre, once operated in conjunction with HAGI, shut down in 2015, when the province decided it wanted to divest itself of the property.

It’s taken three years to get to this point, said Fort William Rotary’s Bob Hookham, adding the NOHFC money is an important piece of the puzzle, adding to approximately $600,000 they’ve raised and spent on the renovations.

“The $400,000 is going to go to the rebuild and the retrofit of the assistance centre. We have to lift the cabins and level them. All the washrooms are completely gutted, right down to the studs. They’ve got to be re-insulated, re-tiled,” Hookham said.

“The showers are being completely redone. Every cabin needs new flooring and a lot of the electrical needs to be upgraded. It’s basically a complete rebuild.”

Liberal MPP Bill Mauro said it was a good use of taxpayer dollars.

“More people are going to be able to access the facility,” he said in making the announcement.