The 2014 camping season will be back to normal in the Estevan area as Woodlawn Regional Park will welcome campers with the opening of all sites this weekend.
For the park's board and employees, getting back to normal is what they have been working toward for three years. Greg Hoffort, chairman of the Woodlawn board, said it's an exciting time to once again be able to offer everything people have come to expect of them on opening day.
"We re-opened maybe halfway last year, and we're pretty excited that on May long weekend, the entire park will be open," said Hoffort, noting the 90 sites, which everyone has in the past been familiar with camping in, will be available.
"The campsites are looking great. We've recreated the campsites to fit any size of camper. We have more drive-through sites than we used to have. It's a redesigned layout of the park and we're hoping for good things.
"We will start tending to the needs of our campers and running a park again instead of building one," added Hoffort. "We look forward to doing what we're there for and that is to provide camping and recreation."
He said everyone is excited to see campers back in the park where too often the last couple of years there have been backhoes and other machinery.
"The plans are to start the regular operations of the park again," said Hoffort, and that will come under the guidance of Aaron-Lee Soparlo, who is the new Woodlawn Regional Park manager, having taken over the helm on May 5.
Soparlo comes to Estevan via Swift Current where she worked with Innovation Credit Union.
She noted there is still some work to be done with the public washrooms in the park, and Hoffort said that's part of their continuing recovery from 2011 flooding.
"As far as the plans for the finishing of the flood recovery, we have some washroom repair to do yet that they're working on as we speak. There's still some river debris, and just finalizing the sites," said Hoffort. "(We'll) give it a good test in the coming weeks to see if everything's working as we hope it will."
He noted they haven't had campers in the sites yet this year, and while they think they are ready for guests, there may be some tree trimming that will still need to happen.
Reservations opened on May 1, and Hoffort said they are optimistic with how many they have already received.
"We were reasonably fortunate that when the flood hit (in 2011) we had just opened up the Boundary Dam site, so we were able to accommodate a lot of our long-time campers out there, but we certainly did suffer in terms of providing the short-term camping opportunities to a lot of people who had always used Woodlawn Park. It was nice to have Boundary pick up some of the slack, and we're looking forward to being fully opened again."
This year there are also plans for the expansion of sites at Boundary Dam, as 40 new ones are slated for construction.
"There's a need out there, but it remains to be seen if they'll be operational this year or not," said Hoffort. "We'll see where it takes us. We're hoping for a good weekend here."
