As the days get shorter and cooler, regional parks in the Weyburn area are wrapping up their seasons and all said park attendance this year was higher than last year. Mainprize Regional Park will wrap up their season on Monday, Sept. 16.
As the days get shorter and cooler, regional parks in the Weyburn area are wrapping up their seasons and all said park attendance this year was higher than last year.
Mainprize Regional Park will wrap up their season on Monday, Sept. 16. and the golf course will close on Sunday, Sept. 29. Before the golf course closes, they will hold an end-of-season tournament on Saturday, Sept. 14. It will be a shotgun start at 10 a.m. and is open to everybody.
"It's been a very good season," said Carrie McDowell manager of the restaurant and golf pro shop. She said the number of gate entrants and golfers were both up over last year. Two of the highlights of the season were the Oilmen's and Oilwomen's Golf Tournaments.
Camping at Mainprize was full every weekend in June and July and a wedding held at the park brought guests from as far away as Scotland.
Due to increased demand for campsites, the Mainprize Regional Park is planning to build more sites for the 2014 season. Some will be home lots and others will be short stay sites. Nine are already under construction.
"In the future, we hope to expand even more," said McDowell.
The Radville-Laurier Regional Park had about a 25 per cent increase in the number of campers this year.
"Lots of the increase was due to oilfield and related activity," said Shauna Bourassa, administrator for the Town of Radville. Bourassa said camping would remain open until "probably the end of October" or whenever the weather gets too cold for camping.
"It was a slow start, but the rest of the season was good," said Lawrence Prost, who runs the golf course at Radville-Laurier Regional Park. He said the number of golfers was higher than last year and said many of the new golfers were women and young people.
The Radville-Laurier golf course will host the Breast Cancer Tournament on Saturday, Sept. 14. Everybody is welcome to the best ball tournament. It starts at 10 a.m.
"Generally the park slows down once school starts, but there are still people here," said Yvonne Johnston is secretary treasurer for the Ceylon Regional Park, which had a higher than normal number of campers and will remain open until the end of September.
"I think it's been a really good season. It's been full," said Johnston. "It's mostly due to some work crews in the area." She said the busiest time for the park was in July, when swimming lessons were underway and during one week in August when the park hosted a mobile playground program sponsored by Sask Lotteries. "It was quite busy," said Johnston.
She said some people really enjoy the smaller parks because they can be easier to get a camping place in.
Nickle Lake Regional Park closes on Sunday, Sept. 15 this year and Heather Hala, park manager, said the 2013 camping season has been very successful.
Hala said August was busier at Nickle Lake this year than it was last year and attributes it to the nice weather. The park also hosted four ball tournaments, including the Knoedler Classic, and there were bouncy castles at the park on two different occasions.
"It was a great hit with children and parents alike," said Hala of the bouncy castles.
New to the park is a play structure which was constructed with the help of volunteers and park staff over the last weekend in August. The paddling pool was also fenced and supervised this year.
"At this time, there are no new expansions planned for next season. This fall there will be a new office constructed at the gate entrance and we are looking forward to greeting park patrons from there in the 2014 season," said Hala. "As always, there is quite an extensive waiting list for seasonal camping sites."
Oungre Memorial Park was also contacted, but did not respond to interview requests.
