Local resident plans to open roller rink
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PABLO — Ethan Friedlander, a life-long resident of the Flathead Indian Reservation, hopes to open a roller rink in Pablo sometime this summer.
The idea was born more than 15 years ago when Friedlander moved away from the reservation for a number of years, attending middle school in Laurel. The town resembled, in many ways, the small-town, homey feel offered by the townships in the Mission and Jocko Valleys, but had one exception: a roller rink.
“After school and on the weekends, me and my friends would go there. It seemed to me that it was always busy and there were a lot of happy kids,” Friedlander remembered.
Friedlander said he had good relationships with all of his friends in Laurel, and said a lot of it had to do with the roller rink. Then, in seventh grade, he moved back to the reservation.
“It was like a culture shock the way the kids where behaving over here,” he said. “It wasn’t as healthy as (in Laurel), and I’m pretty sure a lot of it had to do with the (absence of a) roller rink.
“I guess you could say that (the kids) were not exposed to the negative influences in Laurel as they were on the reservation. (On the reservation) there was a lot of anti-social behavior, there was a behavior that was a little too mature for their age and a lack of supervision.”
Friedlander missed the roller rink and the opportunities and fun it provided for the people of Laurel. So, three years ago, he decided to build one in the Mission Valley. He hopes it will build a sense of community and unity while teaching children important lessons on how to socialize at a young age by offering new social experiences. He also hopes the physical activity inherent in roller skating will help to curb obesity, diabetes, heart disease and “get the kids off the gouch and off of playing video games.
“I think there’s about 14,000 people living in this valley, and I’m hearing a lot of them say things like, ‘How can we make things better in this valley?’ or, ‘How can we make this place better for the kids?’ Well, we have all these community centers, but there’s not a lot of interest in that.
“I think it will improve the quality of life in the area and definitely create a new recreational activity in the winter and summer. I think it would be a great thing to be able to finish off a day of swimming with an afternoon at the roller rink,” he explained
Binky Bowman owns Joe’s Jiffy Stop in Pablo. She sold the shop in 2005 and recently bought it back. In that relatively short span of time, she said Pablo had changed.
“We’ve had a struggle there,” she said. “The highway has changed; the timber mill has shut down; and we’ve struggled. I keep saying, ‘We need to repurpose; we need to do something;’ and Ethan came to me one day asking if I would be willing to work with him on some level.”
Bowman reserved a vacant lot behind Joe’s Jiffy Stop as a possible location for the new structure, and the two spoke about turning the shop into a mini-mall or arcade to accompany the rink.
“I think it’s needed,” Bowman said. “Seriously, what do Pablo kids have to do besides ride bikes and skate? If you’re on the roads in Pablo, you know they’re not great for skateboarding. I think a roller rink in the area could be an awesome thing.”
Friedlander estimates the cost of building either an insulated steel structure or insulated pole barn to house the rink at around $200,000. He hopes to get a loan through the tribe, but has a plan to help the process along.
A registered CPR and First Aid instructor, Friedlander can certify any local resident in CPR and First Aid for $56. Having the certification card printed costs $6, but the remaining $50 will go toward the roller rink’s construction. If he can certify 1,000 people, he will be halfway to the magic number for the roller rink
While community members and leaders have tried to build an infrastructure around the reservation to give children and teens different recreational opportunities, Friedlander said there doesn’t seem to be enough interest in taking advantage of these opportunities.
“There’s a lot of idle time,” he said. “We played a lot of basketball and did a lot of hiking, but a lot of that was on an individual basis, and you had to be interested in those certain types of activities. Not everybody is interested in that; different people want different things to do.”
With this in mind, Friedlander took a look at what was popular around the valley with today’s children and teenagers.
“A lot of people like music; a lot of people like dance; but you can only do that so much, and the only place you can dance and listen to music is at the bars,” he said.
But the project is more than just Friedlander’s “baby.” Understanding that the majority of rink patrons will be a generation or so younger, he’s working hand-in-hand with several 18 and 19-year-old reservation youths, allowing them to participate in several different aspects of the business. Friedlander hopes this experience will impress upon them the idea that they can build something, take ownership of something and have pride in the finished product.
Friedlander called Isaiah Matt, an 18-year-old Mission Valley resident, his “liaison between my generation (30 and older) and his generation (Millennials).”
“(The roller rink) will be a place for kids to have fun so they don’t get in trouble,” Matt said. “I hear people going up to Kalispell to use the other one. They say it’s pretty fun, and Ethan had the idea, so I was all in for it.
“We’re making it so we have fun. All the kids from around here will show up.”
