It’s kind of exciting to see a skydiving club moving into the Weyburn Airport to do jumps here on the weekends, even if it’s temporary for May and June.
Skydive South Sask is the name of the club, normally based in Moose Jaw at their Municipal Airport. Due to the renovations and upgrades being made at that airport, the skydivers needed a place to go and chose to come to Weyburn.
As I discovered in meeting some of the members and chatting with them, there are actually some connections in the group to Weyburn and area, and this may have played a role in their temporary relocation.
The guy I initially talked to, Sheldon Driedger, grew up in Weyburn and his parents live here in the city. He said he left here in 2001, and has been involved in skydiving since he first jumped in 1996.
He recalled doing a jump in 2000 out of a helicopter at the Weyburn airport after being picked up from a field near McDonalds along with other people.
The president of Skydive South Sask is Samantha MacDonald, and she lives here in Weyburn as she is employed at the Tatagwa View long-term care centre.
Club member Bob Kozlowski grew up in the Osage area, and the club’s pilot is Quinn Sidloski. As his name implies, he is related to the Sidloski families here as a second cousin.
As it happens, he’s had one parachute jump, while the members have had hundreds, with Driedger recording the most, over 2,000 jumps.
Weyburn used to have a sport parachute club in the 1990s, as one of five clubs around the province, but now there is only one non-profit club (this one) in the province, and a for-profit skydiving company based out of Saskatoon.
So for people who might be interested in falling out of a plane one to two miles above the earth, this is a great opportunity to try out the activity. As they will only be jumping on weekends, and that is weather-dependent, the spots they have for May and June have already been filling up, so if this is something you really want to do, you’d be advised to get your name(s) in to them.
Will I be jumping? No … I have enough issues with gravity without adding to that challenge, but I’m happy to be around to photograph them.
