Summer is turning into fall soon, as the Labour Day long weekend is ushering in a new month and the start of fall in the southeast. For Moose Mountain Provincial Park, that means the beginning of the end of their camping season, after one last long weekend with their campgrounds open.
Ainsley Sauter, Acting Park Manager, says people can still enjoy some of the nice water even if operations are winding doe.
"We're looking forward to the long weekend, having some nice weather. The visitor center and programming are unfortunately done for the season already as our staff head back to school, but the weather is great and fall is a great time to come out to camp in the parks. The beach store is still open and some of our commercial lessees are still operating, so there are still definitely things to do."
Anyone looking to camp into the fall can still do so for a bit, as the Fish Creek Campground and Linwood Campground stay open for a while.
Overall, the summer was a good season for the park, according to Sauter, with plenty of people coming by to enjoy nature.
"It was a quick summer. There were cooler temperatures and a lot of precipitation through the season, it seemed like. But overall, it went really well. It was still really busy, our weekends were full almost every weekend."
They even managed to hold on through the smoky season, as that hit the southeast over the summer, with northern wildfires only recently burning out.
"Off and on, kind of throughout the summer, there were some days that were pretty bad," said Sauter, "But then it would clear up, and then we'd have weeks of nothing. It just kind of rolled in and out all summer, it seemed, depending on the wind."
Sauter says they're already preparing for next year, with plenty to look forward to next summer.
"We'll do a lot of reflection, and we have certain projects and things that are on the go that we'll start this year, finish up next year, but I guess the biggest thing, one of the biggest impacts and improvements for our campgrounds for next year is that, in the fall, we'll be doing a sewer dump expansion."
"Currently, we just have the two sewer dumps for trailer dump stations at Moose Mountain, which causes a lot of congestion on some days when there are a lot of people outgoing, but we're expanding that to four dumping stations side by side. So it will just be a lot more efficient and reduce the wait times for people checking out of the campground and waiting for those dump stations. So we're really excited about that."
You can find more info on the park's schedule by heading to Parks Saskatchewan's website.