The Kenosee Superslides had an up and down summer, closed by Covid-19 restrictions, reopened, closed by the Saskatchewan Health Authority, then reopened again. The slides were closed on order of the Saskatchewan Health Authority on August 20 and were allowed to partially reopen on August 25, although the business has been ordered to keep some slides closed.
Doug Dahl, Officer for the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) released this statement.
“The Saskatchewan Health Authority has cancelled the operational license for The Superslides, located at Moose Mountain Provincial Park.
“Notice of the cancellation was provided to the owner on Thursday (August 20) and outlines the public health and safety reasons for the decision, as well information about appealing the decision.”
The time the water park was closed was used by the Superslides to correct the issues that SHA ordered remedied.
“We are doing everything in our power to make our slides as safe as possible,” said Jan Armstrong of the Superslides.
“We gel-coated all of our slides for use this year, we check our slides three times a day for any possible particulates or damage or anything that might potentially harm an individual going down our slides.”
According to Armstrong they had 35,000 people come through the park last year and had 21 health/injury incidents at the park.
“Someone tripped or someone stubbed their toe real bad or scraped their knee. I think we had one guy last year who didn’t drink water and had heat stroke. None of them were directly related to the slides or the fibre glass we use on our slides or anything like that,” said Armstrong.
Armstrong said the SHA had concerns with the tube slides at the park at the beginning of the season.
“They came in and saw our tube slides and they said ‘we didn’t give you permission to do that, we are shutting the park down.’
“I can tell you what we have done with the slides, I can tell you about the constant maintenance on the slides, I can tell you that we had a specialist come in and gel-coat every single slide to make them safer and more durable to the elements, I can tell you that we sanitize and put over a kilometer of social distancing lines on our sidewalks, I can tell you that we sanitize our park in the morning, in the afternoon between two and three, and after we close. We check our slides three times a day, we are doing everything we can in a Covid blasted world to keep our water park safe,” said Armstrong.
Probationary licence
On August 25, the park was partially reopened with a probationary licence allowing operation of only some of the slides.
“Effective today (August 25, 2020) the Saskatchewan Health Authority has granted a Probationary Licence to The Superslides located at Moose Mountain Provincial Park for the operation of specific slides within the park. The owner has been informed of the terms of the Probationary Licence and been advised of the process to appeal the decision and terms of the Probationary Licence,” said Doug Dahl, Communications Officer for the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
“Initially (SHA) came in and saw that we were using slides that we had thought were allowed to be used, but were not according to them and so they shut us down,” said Armstrong.
“They are worried about the structural stability of the fibre glass on specifically the tube slides. So, the tube slides are currently closed. But we are hopefully going to rectify that by having an expert come in and look at our slides. We are very confident that he will sign off on them and approve that our slides are being maintained properly and that they are safe for public use. Once we’ve done that, hopefully before the weekend, we will with luck have all of our slides open with the exception of the free fall which is another story,” said Armstrong.
Thankful for support
Armstrong was touched and grateful to all the support from the public who expressed their support when his business was ordered to close.
“All of these people have been so amazingly supportive to us,” he said.
“We have been getting phone calls from people to tell us to keep it up, that we are doing a good job. We got more comments on our videos in the last five days than ever in the history of this park. It is all just positive feedback and encouragement.”
