Weekend at Greenwater Lake Provincial Park
FTLComm - Greenwater Lake - Thursday, July 14, 2011
So far this summer we have visited a number of regional parks and this is our third visit to a provincial park. The Victoria Day weekend was to have begun at Greenwater Lake Provincial Park but it was late at night, there are no signs to find the overflow camp site and we ended up in Kelvington. Our other Provincial Park stay was at Narrow Hills. This trip we expected a lot of people to be at the park because of concerts on Friday and Monday nights so I came out to the park on Thursday to get a camp site. I knew from the provincial web site that the regular sites were all book since winter but I was hoping on an off chance to get a electrical site. That didn’t happen and we went to overflow 2.4 kilometres toward the golf course. Fortunately we had the car with us on this trip otherwise it would not have worked out.
The overflow camp site is nice and level but a bit scarce with services. Most of the campers had generators throbbing away, some twenty-four hours a day. We had some battery trouble and had to run up the generator about every four hours in order to keep things functioning.
The camp site is quiet and a really great environment we enjoyed a fire all but one night when the rain made going outside a bit difficult.
Greenwater Lake is full of water as most Saskatchewan lakes this summer and it is most noticeable at the beach were the long expansive beach we are used to see is definitely abbreviated this year. Through out the time we were at the park there were lots and lots of people and even though the temperatures were marginal people were making the best of the remarkable scenery and facilities at this provincial park.
The marina was really busy, we saw people enjoying water sports and successfully fishing, there were people on the hiking trail and the golf course was doing a steady business.
On Sunday we drove west of the golf course as we could see from the Google map that there was a road going due west and we went out through some remarkable hills through a nice forest and then there we were, at another lake. A quick look at the map and sure enough Greenwater Lake Provincial Park has two lakes not just one. The second is Marean Lake which I know from friends is very popular with the fishing crowd. Our little road ended at a little peer and boat launch, no sign indicates that it is Marean Lake but across the water you could see the cabins and development. There was fishing boats on the water and lots of watersports boating.
A very beautiful spot.
The streets around the park are still a little tough from the spring frost boils but they are much improved from May. There is plenty of unserviced camping sites available but the seasonal campers use up the bulk of the park’s sites and those of the private campground operators which appear to be expanding.
Greenwater has excellent cafes, two stores and ice cream but watch out if you buy ice cream at the beach store. $3.50 for a large soft ice cream cone and it is the same size as the small one. The quality was fine but the operator looks to be trying to make a life time of profit each season.
The picture page 68 images taken by Judy and Timothy Shire.