Best summers were spent at Cypress Hills Park

By Joan Janzen

Cypress Hills Provincial Park has been an all-time favourite destination for many people from Saskatchewan and Alberta for many, many years. Members of the Historic Saskatchewan FB group shared fond childhood memories of time spent at the park decades ago.

“As a teenager, I worked summers in the restaurant. Best summers ever!” Shirley Richardson wrote. “Met and worked with so many wonderful people from all over. Quite a few came from Texas to work at Cypress.”

Cypress Hills Provincial Park has been an all-time favourite destination for many, many years. PHOTO HISTORIC SASKATCHEWAN

At that time, she and her friends enjoyed dances and were able to swim in the lake. It was a tradition for the employees at the restaurant to be thrown off the dock into the lake on their birthdays while wearing their uniforms.

John Schmitt chimed in, writing, “It takes me back to the days when I would cruise the road around the lake in my 1960 Saratoga with the girl of my dreams. Girls walked the road around the lake, and guys cruised it for the date to the Saturday night dances.”

More memories were shared by Joy Anderson, who recalled attending the Saturday night dances. “Then on Sunday, we would be back again for a picnic,” she recalled. “When I was younger, it was still legal to have a motor boat on the lake. My best friend’s uncle owned a motor boat, and we cruised the lake every Sunday.”