Snowdon Park is expected to keep its name

City Council will be asked to ensure a 0.28-hectare municipal park near Algoma University continues to be named after a key figure in the founding of Plummer Hospital and the F. J. Davey Home.

Snowdon Park was created in the 1960s and named after Ashton Snowdon, who served as chair of the local board of health and as a longtime school trustee.  

As SooToday reported in January, the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association (CSAA) requested the park be renamed Memorial Park to recognize the drownings of four boys that occurred there in the 1900s.

But in March, descendants of Ashton Snowdon asked that his name continue to be associated with the park.

The city created a task force to look into the issue, and late last month a meeting was arranged with members of both the CSAA and Snowdon's descendants.

A consensus was reached that the Snowdon Park name could be retained, but an area of the park's northwest corner will be set up as a reflection area with benches, trees, a commemorative plaque and a path to connect the space.

"An arbor will be installed along with signage indicating that this is a memorial space," the consensus statement said.

"The exact wording of the signage will be approved at the next meeting of the CSAA. City staff will work with the CSAA to finalize signage for this space."

Snowdon Park is located on Shannon Road and Florwin Drive.

It has two tennis courts and a playground.

Stewart Myers and Victor Haft sold the property for $1 to the city in 1956. 

Two young male students from the Shingwauk school had drowned in a pond there in either 1914 or 1915.

Their bodies were never recovered and it's believed they are still somewhere in Snowdon Park.

Identities of the two boys are not known. 

In November 1929, a third Shingwauk student, Peter Beauvais from the Kanesatake (Oka) First Nation, drowned in the same pond and was buried in the Shingwauk Cemetery.

Then, in late February 1960, Robert Crossman slid into the pond and his older brother Gerald followed him into the water to save him.

Robert was pulled out with help from four young girls from the Shingwauk and Wawanosh residential schools, but big brother Gerald drowned, his body recovered by a city police scuba diver.

As SooToday's James Hopkin has reported, the City of Sault Ste. Marie apologized two years ago to another brother, Ken Crossman.

“The city should have, at the time, taken safety precautions to ensure that an accident like this could not occur with at minimum a fence around the pond to prevent access to the pond, and for that we apologize,” said the city's apology letter.

"The city did not take such safety precautions and it was wrong not to do so, and we hope that you will accept our apology for that.”

The Shannon Road pond was filled in and the city later established Snowdon Park on the site.

City councillors will be asked at an upcoming meeting to confirm the agreed-upon arrangements for the Snowdon Park memorial.