WATROUS/ MANITOU
- beach 2020
PHOTO CREDIT: BRYAN MIERAU
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WATROUS / MANITOU beach
2020
WATROUS MANITOU
welcomes you!
Our community is re-opening as the provincial regulations allow. Already you are invited to explore and more is available soon.
• Little Manitou Lake is excellent for sailing, kayak, and canoeing. The lake is 13 KM long. • Explore 5 km of marked walking trails throughout the village. • Discover the community! An antique shop, two art galleries and our favorite ice cream café are already open. • The Manitou Beach Golf Course is offering 18 hole bookings, restaurant, and store. • Manitou Regional Campground is accepting Saskatchewan bookings. • Our beaches are open! Swim in the natural healing waters of Little Manitou Lake.
More is coming!
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WATROUS / MANITOU beach
2020
Watrous-Manitou: Your close-to-home escape
BY JENNIFER JACOBY-SMITH Last year the Watrous and Manitou Beach area celebrated its centennial (?). Thousands of visitors descended on the area. The Big Float featured 1600 people floating in Little Manitou Lake while reading books and newspapers (?). Since then the world has gone through a massive shift. While the world has changed in the last few months, Gary Bergen with the Watrous Manitou Tourism Board says Watrous and Manitou Beach haven’t changed much. There are still plenty of things you and your family to do when you visit this summer. The healing properties of Little Manitou Lake have attracted visitors for centuries. The high mineral content allows for easy buoyancy. Similar to the waters found in the Dead Sea in Jordan, Little Manitou Lake’s waters have reported healing and rejuvenating properties.
Golfers can rejoice.
When golf courses reopened in May, golfers across the province heaved a sigh of relief. Manitou Beach Golf Club offers beginners and seasoned golfers a beautiful and challenging course. At par 36, the nine-hole golf course boasts lush greens and mature trees. General pandemic controls are still in place and golfers are asked to respect all public health notices and physical distancing must be observed at all times. There’s always an opportunity to connect with local artists. For years the area has attracted many visual artists – paint-
ers, sculptures, and photographers – who take inspiration from the prairie landscape. From watching fiery sunsets to seeing the northern lights dance to taking in the bold harvest colours, there is much natural beauty to appreciate in the area. And artists have found creative and unique ways to capture it. For those who like treasure hunting, GG’s Gallery and Gifts, Relics Arts and Antiques, and Little Manitou Art Gallery are open for visitors. You’ll find original artwork, books, jewellery, and other surprises. Little Manitou is offering small come-and-go music events outdoors
every Saturday. Manitou Springs Hotel and Mineral Spa is currently slated to open as part of Phase 4 and Danceland will also remained close until at least Aug. 1. Still there are plenty of venues that are waiting for their chance to reopen once health officials give the okay. “Not a lot is different from what is usually the case here. There’s a lot things to do. Camping, golfing, the beach,” says Bergen. While no one knows how long travel will be restricted, it seems that for the immediate future many people will be looking for a getaway that’s easily accessi-
ble and Watrous and Manitou Beach have so much to offer. “Some people are looking for a vacation pretty close to home if they’re in Saskatoon or Regina. We’re right here,” Bergen says. Perhaps the greatest reason to visit Watrous and Manitou Beach are the same as they’ve always been – despite the everything else, the beauty of the place remains unchanged.
THIS FEATURE WAS CREATED BY CONTENT WORKS, POSTMEDIA’S COMMERCIAL CONTENT DIVISION.
Beach life is the best life.
While the number of people on the beach at any one time will be limited and physical distancing must still be respected, the beaches at Manitou Beach are open. There are two public beaches for visitors to enjoy. In addition, visitors can enjoy the beauty of the lake while sailing, canoeing, kayaking or paddle boarding. And Wellington Park is also a great spot for family picnic or a hike or simply relax and soak up the prairie sunshine.
Camping is back.
The Manitou and District Regional Park is open at half-capacity. Campsites are open only to Saskatchewan residents. As well, the campground has a playground that recently reopened for the little ones to burn off some energy. Visitors are now allowed in the campground, but they must register at the Campground office and a $5 day pass is required. Tenting onsite is not allowed as washrooms are not open at present. Check in time is 2 p.m. There is still a limit of 10 people per gathering. Check their website for the latest information. (ManitouRegional.com)
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WATROUS / MANITOU beach
2020
Lucky to be Little BY WENDY LIVINGSTONE Efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 might have some Saskatchewan art gallery owners feeling constrained, but Sarah McKen, owner of the Little Manitou Art Gallery, does not feel at all restricted by the regulations. “We are lucky to be little,” she says. “Being told we can have a maximum of 30 people really doesn’t cramp our style.” Five separate buildings, exhibiting the works of more than 100 visual artists, span three lots in the village of Manitou Beach. Patrons are free to wander through the grounds from one venue to the other and view the additional works outdoors. Some of the pavilions display paintings; others offer pottery, small table-top sculpture, glasswork, jewellery and other items. A central building houses more artwork, the check-out, and studios. The gallery is naturally well-suited to allow physical distancing by visitors. “I ask for one family unit in a pavilion gallery at a time because our buildings are small,” says McKen. “People can hang out in the yard and take their turn. The doors are always wide open, so there’s air flow and people don’t have to touch door knobs.” Because she wants visitors to feel “welcomed and safe,” she has taken steps to ensure their wellbeing. “I have three hands-free hand sanitizer stations: one at gate, one at the till and one in the yard, and I ask people to try to refrain from handling items.” She frequently sanitizes all surfaces, has a running-water, hand-wash station
and sanitizes the portable toilet after every use. She has also set up a special tracking system whereby visitors may send a text to a number displayed at the front gate to record the time of their arrival and their contact number. This log will not be monitored unless there is an occurrence of COVID-19, in which case those who registered on the same day as the infected patron, or the week following that, will be notified about their possible exposure. McKen now finds herself kept busy managing the gallery, but that was not her focus eight years ago when she and her partner, Clayton Cave, moved to Manitou Beach. Accomplished artists, they relocated to the village to produce their work in the peaceful, lake-side atmosphere. Cave is a carver, working with bone, antler, ivory and some wood. He creates custom-built knives, jewelry and sculptures, and assists McKen in maintaining the property. She has a bronze-casting foundry where she conducts the entire casting process, from clay, to molten bronze, to finished piece. The gallery began to take shape when curious visitors dropped by to see the work that was being produced in the studio. “That made us realize that we should have a showroom, and, once we set up the little gallery, we couldn’t keep up,” said McKen. “It has just grown year after year – connecting with other artists and building other venues, and then, all of a sudden, I realized this is what we are doing. This is what’s happened.” Approximately 9,000 guests dropped into the gallery last year.
ANDREW LIVINGSTONE
The Little Manitou Art Gallery proves that sometimes there are advantages to being little. Five separate buildings house the works of more than 100 visual artist. The small size allows them to remain open even while gatherings are limited.
Donna Harpauer, MLA Humboldt-Watrous Constituency 632-9th St., Box 2950, Humboldt SK S0K 2A0 (306) 682-5141 humboldtwatrousmla@sasktel.net
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WATROUS / MANITOU beach CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 It is not just visual artists who attract visitors to the Little Manitou Gallery though. Performing artists and musicians are a draw all summer long. Special events for 2020 include the Annual Art Affair on July 2, when the gallery celebrates its anniversary. There will be a cocktail bar and music provided by the Raven She Hollers band. The gallery features live entertainment each Saturday throughout the summer, culminating with the Manitou Music Fest on the September long weekend. The event will feature 10 musical performances from noon to midnight. “I’m really happy that, because I’m small, I’m still able to connect with Saskatchewan performers,” said McKen. “I think the rug was pulled out from under them when they were not able to perform and share their music [due to COVID19 restrictions]. With us being outdoors, and being small, we will still be able to go ahead and have a lot of fun throughout the summer.”
2020
Manitou Springs Resort and Mineral Spa waiting for go-ahead to open BY CAROL TODD One of Saskatchewan’s premiere resorts and tourism destinations is ready and raring to go as soon as possible following months of a COVID-19 fuelled shut down. The Manitou Springs Resort and Mineral Spa, which is normally open year-round, has been closed since March 20 due to the pandemic.
Operators have been using the time to spruce up the facility and Dwight Hayter, CEO and general manager, says they’ll be ready to go as soon as the provincial government restrictions are eased. In the meantime, Hayter says the facility has been undergoing a bit of a makeover. “We’re using our time very wisely just to beautify things a little bit
more….The place never looked better,” he says. The resort is a European-style mineral spa and hotel with 105 rooms overlooking Little Manitou Lake, as well as conference rooms and all the amenities. The spa was built in 1987 to replace the former summer only pool, which had burned down. The hotel was built four years later in response to the
popularity of the pool. And, that popularity has continued to grow over the years, Hayter says. “We had a great year in 2019 and we were going to have an even better year this year until the COVID-19 pandemic happened,” he says. At the same time, Hayter is optimistic for the rest of 2020, with the pandemic encouraging people to vacation within the province.
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SUPPLIED PHOTO
There is an endless variety of local artwork to see at the Little Manitou Gallery. Whether you’re looking for something unique to adorn your walls or your garden there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
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WATROUS / MANITOU beach CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 “There’s a lot of people that want to go on vacation in Saskatchewan — that don’t want to leave the province, but they don’t want to go to a large centre or a large city to do so,” he says. In addition to the obvious attractions of the lake and the resort, he points to the fact that the Watrous-Manitou area is not only centrally located, it is also a smaller community. “That’s really going to work in our favour now as the COVID pandemic has affected so many people’s lives and their decisions,” he says. The resort is located in the Resort Village of Manitou Beach — half way between the Alberta and Manitoba borders, it lies within Saskatchewan’s picturesque parkland region. The geographical area of the province that separates the prairie grassland to the south from the boreal forests of the North is covered with trees and dotted with lakes and agricultural land. The population of the Watrous-Manitou area has now grown to more than 3,000 residents, including Watrous and the Resort Village of Manitou, with its more than 300 yearlong residents. The main attraction remains the waters of
Little Manitou Lake, which are filtered and disinfected before filling the pool at the spa. The waters, with their high mineral content, have been compared to those of the Dead Sea in Israel. They are said to possess a range of healing and therapeutic properties. Formed by receding glaciers during the most recent ice age, the long, narrow lake it is fed by underground springs. But, there’s no way out for the water, so the minerals like sodium, magnesium and potassium salts build up. The salt content of the water (180 g/L) gives it a density about half of that of the Dead Sea, allowing bathers to float easily. The beach is open, subject to provincial health guidelines, and Hayter says the resort will open as soon as the guidelines allow the pool to reopen. “We’re not going to open any of the resort until the indoor pool opens, that’s the primary reason for our business is the pool,” he says. Once that happens, Hayter says it’ll be full steam ahead for the resort known for its healing mists. “When we do reopen, it will be all departments. The restaurant capacity will have to be at 50 per cent as the rules currently state and
2020
SUPPLIED PHOTO
The therapeutic properties of the water at Manitou have made the Manitou Springs Resort and Mineral Spa a popular destination for Saskatchewan residents.
that’s fine, we have convention areas and a very large outdoor patio that we’ll be able to sit a lot of people in. So food and beverage service will be achieved very easily for us,” he says. With the final phases of the provincial re-opening underway, he advises people to visit the facility’s website https://manitousprings.ca or Facebook page to find out when the resort will open.
SUPPLIED PHOTO
Experience the trails at Watrous-Manitou
BY PAT REDIGER As people look for new ways to spend their time during the pandemic, many are turning to trails as a healthy and fun way to get some exercise and a little adventure. One of those adventures awaits in the Watrous-Manitou area, which has a variety of trails that make the trip worthwhile. David Powell, President of the Saskatchewan Trails Association (STA) invites residents to get out and enjoy the trail network. “Escape the indoors, and experience the beauty of Saskatchewan trails,” he said. “Bring your family and friends, or even have your own solo adventure on a new trail. Keep in mind the safety of yourself and others while practicing social distancing.” The STA has previously worked with the Town of Watrous to developed the Watrous Rotary Trail, which consists of two components -- the first part is 1.5 kilometres long and the
second part is a 1 km section that loops back to the trail head. This trail then connects to the Watrous Manitou Trail, which extends the network even further. The Manitou District Regional Park also offers two nature trails that are perfect for hiking. Both of the trails begin behind the park’s campground and finish at Wellington Park. The trails are well-groomed, feature gentle hills and coulees and are located within a well-treed area that helps protect visitors from the wind. During your trip, you will likely encounter various animal and bird species – particularly whitetail and mule deer, waterfowl and migratory birds – making it an ideal place for bird watchers and nature lovers to enjoy. If by chance you do run into other trail lovers along your hike, the STA advises that you adhere to the guidelines set out by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC). You can help protect yourself by practicing physical distanc-
ing which is defined as maintaining a 2-meter (6-feet) distance away from others and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth as well as any other surfaces others may have come in contact with. It is also important to practice good hand hygiene. “If you are looking to find more information on these or any other trails in the province, you can check out the STA’s on-line trail directory at sasktrails.ca/trail-directory,” said Powell. “The directory provides information about trails, locations, difficulty, length, photos and maps. It can help you get from point A to point B on your journey to experience nature on the trails.” The STA recently launched a month-long photo contest for June called Give Us Your Best Shot. Make sure to take lots of photos while hiking one of the trails and send your best shots via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or email. You can enter as often as you like and the best photo, as selected by the STA board of directors,
will receive a $200 gift card from Cabela’s. All photos become property of the STA and will be used to promote your favourite trails. The contest wraps up on June 30 and a decision on the top prize will be made the following week. After you’ve experienced the trail system, the STA encourages you to make a donation to the trail of your choice, and to help support trail development and maintenance programs in Saskatchewan. STA memberships are also available for as little as $25 per year for an individual. STA members have accesses to trail funding and other resources and can also attend and vote at meetings of members. Visit Sasktrails.ca to find out more information about trails and activities you can do in your area. Every new trail offers a unique adventure!
THIS STORY WAS SUBMITTED BY SASKATCHEWAN TRAILS ASSOCIATION FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES.
WATROUS / MANITOU beach
2020
Creating family memories at the Jubilee Drive In BY JENNIFER JACOBY-SMITH Drive-in movie theatres bring back a lot of memories for those of a certain age who grew up in rural Saskatchewan. A community drive-in theatre might have been the only theatre for miles. Getting your drivers license so you could take a carload of your best friends to a feature film on a hot summer night was a big milestone for teenagers. It was the perfect way to enjoy the latest thriller or romantic comedy. Drive-in movie theatres are enjoying a moment. With the pandemic closing down indoor movie theatres and physical distancing limiting many entertainment choices, the drive-in movie theatre provides the perfect way to enjoy a night of entertainment on the silver screen. Unfortunately, the Jubilee Drive-In in Manitou Beach hit a snag this spring. After a replacement part proved faulty, the team is waiting a new part. As a result, opening had to be delayed.
Once repairs are complete the drive-in will open, but it has meant for frustrating days for Tara Hayden. Hayden has been associated with the Jubilee Drive In for 25 years. “I’ve had lots of late nights,” she laughs. “You have no idea how much popcorn I’ve eaten.” Hayden stepped away from it a few years ago, but is back helping out the new manager until things are up and running. She says visitors can expect a few minor changes this summer to comply with pandemic controls. Stalls will be clearly marked to make physical distancing easier should you have to leave your vehicle. The concession will also have a few minor adjustments. Once open there is another obstacle for the theatre to confront – there are no new releases. Most movie studios have refrained from releasing any new movies, due to the pandemic lockdowns began in North American in March.
So far the plan is to include an array of films this summer that Hayden calls “oldies, but goodies”. She adds, “We’re keeping that under wraps for now.” What makes the Jubilee Drive In attract crowds, year after year? “I’d like to say it’s us, but I think it’s just the experience,” she says. “I believe people don’t want to stray too far from their comfort zone. So you’re in your own vehicle, in your pajamas. You’re eating as much popcorn as you want without the next guy knowing. People love that.” Visitors don’t have to mute or turn off their cell phones so they can stay connected to family. “You can bring your kids with you. Probably they’re just going to go to sleep in the back and
then you can carry them into the house when you get home,” says Hayden. “It is a very, very comfortable place to be.” You can even bring blankets or pillows to get as comfortable as you want. While older generations might love the nostalgic feeling of heading to the drive-in, it’s all new to the younger generation. After extended months confined to home, they may love the novelty of watching their favourite movie under the stars. Either way, Jubilee Drive In continues to help families make memories. Keep an eye on their Facebook page for opening dates, show times, and featured films this summer. Search for “Jubilee Drive In, Manitou Beach”.
BRYAN MIERAU
Despite a late start, the Jubilee Drive In will be playing some “oldies, but goodies” according to Tara Hayden. The popular summertime attraction is a comfortable way to create some memories with your family.
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