After a very uncertain spring, many Clear Lake businesses were able to salvage the 2020 tourist season.
Along with many non-essential services, the country’s parks shut down in the spring.
“In the interest of the health and safety of visitors and employees, Parks Canada temporarily suspended all visitor services in all national parks, national historic sites and national marine conservation areas across the country on Thursday, March 19, 2020,” said Jodi Duhard, Acting Public Relations and Communications Officer for Riding Mountain National Park.
The world needed a moment to regroup and figure out how they were going to deal with this strange new reality. Reopening the parks were always in the works, but it had to happen in such a way that everyone that came to the parks felt safe.
“Prior to any resumption planning, all of Parks Canada’s visitor services were reviewed and adjusted based on the advice of public health experts and measures required by provincial and local authorities. The ability to practice physical distancing and hygiene measures, and allow consistent access to personal protective equipment were considered as Riding Mountain National Park began to plan for the resumption of limited services and access to the park following the shutdown,” said Duhard.
On June 1, National Parks like Riding Mountain National Park opened, even if it did not open the way it usually opened, it opened to the public.
“To help Canadians gain access to the health and wellness benefits that come from being outdoors and in nature, Riding Mountain National Park began a gradual resumption of limited visitor access and limited visitor services on June 1st,” said Duhard.
The limited visitors were greeted by new signs and new regulations. These regulations are still in effect.
“At this time, we strongly encourage all visitors to wear a non-medical mask or face covering when visiting indoor public spaces at any Parks Canada place. When you visit a Parks Canada place, you may see signs reminding you that this is what we recommend. If a Parks Canada place is within a jurisdiction where wearing a non-medical mask or face covering is mandatory, visitors will be asked to follow this requirement,” said Duhard
For Riding Mountain, it was important that communication with employees and guests stay clear and focused.
“When Riding Mountain National Park began to resume limited visitor services and access within the park, it was important to maintain clear communication and updates with the public and with employees to ensure the rules and guidelines in place were respected and adhered to for the health and safety of both visitors and park staff. We regularly updated our website with detailed information on what services were resuming (including campgrounds and day use areas), what visitors could expect and how visitors could prepare for their visit to the park. We continue to provide up-to-date information on our website and encourage all visitors to refer to Riding Mountain National Park’s COVID-19 information page prior to visiting the park,” said Duhard.
When some of the travel restrictions were lifted, people flocked to the regional, provincial and national parks in their area and Riding Mountain was no exception.
“So far, we have had a successful and busy summer at Riding Mountain National Park with visitors making the most of what the park has to offer – which includes the use of trails, grounds, beaches, waterways and our many campgrounds. Enjoying the outdoors is a great way to maintain health and wellness even during the pandemic, so long as everyone follows physical distancing and proper hygiene practices as recommended by public health officials,” said Duhard.
Boardwalk on Clear Lake
For Sandra Shwetz and her team at the Boardwalk on Clear Lake, that fateful Thursday in March brought no comfort, even though businesses in the park could be open.
“We didn’t know if we would have a season at all. There was complete uncertainty as to what I was going to do financially. Doing what was right is always the first thing and trying to sort that out in a brand new situation was difficult,” said Shwetz.
It was a strange time since people where allowed in to access the businesses in the park, but that the park itself was closed for business.
“When people saw that (the park) was closed and the barricades they assumed they could not access businesses either,” said Shwetz.
The Boardwalk on Clear Lake usually opens its doors to the public in mid-May and by June the place is packed.
“Our start is generally mid-May, by June it starts getting busy and then very busy during July and August. We did open May long-weekend and that was a last minute decision like three days before we said we are going to do it. We heard a couple of businesses including a couple of accommodations places where going to open. So that was kind of the factor that pushed us to say okay we will provide a service for the visitors who are here and get our doors open,” said Shwetz.
Since the Boardwalk usually only opens for business in May anyway, they ended up only opening a week later than usual. Although this meant that they had plenty of time to prepare to open, whether they would be allowed to open remained to be seen till the last minute.
“We had lots of time to think about if we could open, what it might be like, but we just had no idea when, we had no idea what kind of traffic there would be, we had no idea what to really prepare for because the government was changing their regulations and allowances on a constant basis Parks Canada was trying to figure things out on the fly,” said Shwetz.
Steve McLellan, CEO of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce once said that the government coming up with the pandemic response was like “flying a plane while trying to build it at the same time,” and Shwetz could not agree more.
“That is a really good quote that is right, no one really knew,” said Shwetz.
Sleepless nights
Leading up to the May long-weekend and opening day, Shwetz says that she was starting to worry.
“Honestly, I have never had a sleepless night in my lifetime, but this was the first time. Trying to figure out what we would need business wise, what we were going to need to do to keep everyone safe was the first time I ever lost sleep in my life time. It did weigh heavy on me trying to figure it all out, because you really felt that you had people’s health and care in your hands,” said Shwetz.
The fact that the Boardwalk is a restaurant and health and safety has always been priority, did not lessen the burden of this new responsibility.
“I mean we are a restaurant, so we’ve always been making sure that everyone is kept safe in our establishment, but somehow this (COVID-19) seemed like a whole new thing to deal with. We know how to handle food we know how to keep things clean, but how to flow people so that they don’t come in contact with you or each other was just a whole different animal,” said Shwetz.
The first thing that needed to happen was get the place up to COVID-19 code.
“We put up plexiglass barriers throughout our counter system. Normally the little kids can jump on a little red bench and look at the ice cream, but we had to block that off so the kids could not approach the cases anymore, so that was one unfortunate thing, other than that, we have four allotted serving stations, so people can come in, in very separated areas. We were allowing in the group sizing of whatever was allowed at the time, I think it was six people. Six people where allowed at a time at a station and we were wearing masks from the beginning,” said Shwetz.
No big smile
The Boardwalk was allowed to serve people, but with the new regulations and wearing of masks, something did not feel right from the start.
“We are kind of known as the super friendly place, so to not be able to greet people with a big smile, that was a really tough thing. I didn’t think that would bother me, but it has. We do have a smile on the back of our shirts so when we turn around they get a smile but I think that weighed on the psyche of the customer also, to come into a place and everyone has mask and the plexiglass is there and they are not getting that big greeting, they are not seeing the big smiles, it is just different for them and kind of puts them in a different frame of mind,” said Shwetz.
However, smile or no, people came and got their ice cream and other treats at the Boardwalk in record numbers.
“I think the biggest surprise was that we stayed as busy as we did. Honestly, we’ve had basically the same season we always have. The only thing is we didn’t quite hire staff for a regular season, so we are working very hard,” said Shwetz.
The Boardwalk usually has its doors open until October and Shwetz thinks that can be the case this year too.
“We go until Thanksgiving. The regular season goes until September long-weekend, but we usually stay fairly busy,” said Shwetz.
Restaurants are held to high cleanliness standards, but Shwetz feels that a few regulations might be kept even after the pandemic.
“Some of the new serving practices and the daily screening of the health of our employees. When they are not well they do not work, I think we will stick with that, other than that we always had really ridged cleaning protocols, but the team serving has made things even faster and we have implemented some infrastructure to serve people faster because of this that we are going to carry on,” says Shwetz.
