“It was a good year, overall,” said Brian Thiessen, Morden’s Lake Minnewasta Campground Director, about the summer of 2022.
“Looking back, the spring probably hurt us the most with the late start, the wet conditions. The weather didn't seem to warm up till later on, so it took a bit of time for us to dry out up here. Then, the summer went along famously. We got to see people from different areas again, not just the locals. We had people as far away as Texas, South Carolina, Vancouver Island, and Quebec, which is good to see there's people out traveling again.”
While numbers were strong over the summer, there was room for more.
“We were still full, but we had some empty spots, a little bit more than we've had in the past two years, which is what we anticipated. We also anticipated a slight drop in our gate sales, because we knew people were going to be able to travel, so we took that into account as well. We were still above what we had forecasted for the year, which is a good sign. We still did better than we did before COVID, but not as good as we did during COVID.”
July typically sees the highest attendance at the lake and campground due to swimming lessons and great weather, where August historically sees a drop due to no swimming lessons offered and an increase in algae blooms, and this year was no different, remarked Thiessen.
As of Aug 11, 2022, Deputy Manager of Operations, Santokh Randawa, said in a statement, the City is still waiting for research authorization from the Pest Management Regulatory Authority (PMRA) to use the lake as a trial site for an algae Sonic Treatment System, since the application was sent in spring of this year. He remains hopeful to be approved this fall with installation to take place next year.
Compared to last year’s drought, water levels were consistently high this year.
“In my four years, this is the first time that the rocks at the canoe launch remained in water the entire time. So, that seemed very promising to me, considering how much water it looked like we went through last year, even though we were restricted. To see that we were able to maintain some sort of good level throughout the entire year was was very positive.”
The Splish Splash Water attraction is a way to boost tourism to the lake and Thiessen shared, he is still hearing good reviews about it.
“I'm still getting stopped on the streets or in the grocery stores, with people saying, how awesome it is to have this here for either their kids or their grandkids that have come out from wherever they are from, and have spent the weekend on it and they really enjoyed it.” He added, “It's a great thing to see and and to be able to hear that come back, to affirm we have something that is an attraction for people to come from another area.”