‘Unbelievable mess’ of garbage left after ‘Ditch Day’ grad party at Chief Whitecap dog park

A so-called “Ditch Day” grad party that saw at least 2,000 students from various high schools in Saskatoon and Martensville descend on Chief Whitecap Dog Park in Furdale is being slammed by at least one park regular.

The “Senior Skip Day” party happened on Fri, June 12. According to Rob Duttchen, Corman Park police chief, several agencies were informed about the event ahead of time.

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“We were very fortunate to be able to partner with the RCMP, the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol, Saskatchewan Conservation (Service) and with officers from the Vanscoy Police Service to have a fairly substantial presence at the beach that day,” he said.

Duttchen said a road block was set up to greet at least a dozen school buses that arrived there, along with parents dropping off their kids and others driving to and from the park to try and prevent impaired drivers from leaving the area.

Colin Hynne, a daily park visitor, said every year, there are grad parties at Chief Whitecap, but this year’s gathering eclipsed all others he’s seen. When he arrived at the park, his first thought was to wonder where the buses came from.

“There were school buses there, and a bunch of drunk kids – like, high school kids, hammered, drinking, getting onto these school buses.

“Where the hell did they get school buses from?” he questioned.

A statement from the Saskatoon Public School Division indicated that officials are familiar with “Senior Skip Day,” however it is neither sanctioned by, nor supported in any way by the division.

It also said that SPSD does not manage its own fleet of buses, but “contracts services from Hertz Northern Bus and First Student Canada. These companies provide transportation services to a variety of clients.”

While Hynne said he arrived near the end of the day when many were leaving, there were still several hundred students at the park. What he noticed next was the garbage strewn all over the beach.

“The empty beer cans, the empty bottles, the mess was unbelievable,” he recalled. “At that point, I literally lost my mind. I stormed into the middle of the group and started pulling garbage bags out of my backpack, and ordering kids to start frickin’ cleaning up their mess.”

Several dozen students on the beach at the “Ditch Day” event at Chief Whitecap dog park in Furdale. Park-goer Colin Hynne said it took days to clean up all of the garbage left behind from the June 12 party. (Colin Hynne/Submitted)

“There’s no grasp of, ‘This is a dog park beach.’ You couldn’t look without seeing a can. Like, there was a can every two feet.”

He said that while some students refused to pick up litter, others did help clean it up.

“It ended up being about 1,300 cans that were picked up. Like, 1,300 cans. Alcohol cans and bottles,” he said, still astonished.

The students helped carry the bags to Hynne’s SUV and loaded them into the vehicle. He said the proceeds would go to the SPCA.

Not all of the garbage was collected that night, however. Hynne said some of it was washed away as the South Saskatchewan River levels rose over the weekend. He and others did come back early this week to clean up as much as they could.

“We were pulling cans out of the water for a couple of days, and we got the rest of it cleaned up last night (Tuesday), I think,” he added.

Hynne said while he understands Grade 12 graduation is a significant life event and teens want to have parties, there are respectful ways to do that.

“Doing it in a dog park is not the place to do it. Not being prepared, not having the means to clean up after yourself … you don’t have to have your footprint on the event,” he said. “Have some respect for the area that you’re in.”

Duttchen said Corman Park Police handed out at least 100 tickets in relation to the event for issues like open alcohol, minors with alcohol, trespassing and driving with a suspended license. He’s not sure how many tickets were handed out by other agencies.

The silver lining, however, was that only one person was stopped for impaired driving.

“At the end of the day, we wanted to send a message: Let them (students) know that we were there, and recognize that where we observed offences, we were going to have zero tolerance,” he said.