Meewasin Valley Authority to take over Leisureland “paradise” at the end of 2022

On the outskirts of Saskatoon near the Queen Elizabeth Power Station, there’s a secluded piece of land on the South Saskatchewan River.

A long gravel road will take you to what once was a thriving community where dozens of people lived in mobile homes for  decades.

Now, there are just a few people left.

As of Dec. 31, the Meewasin Valley Authority will take over the area known locally as “Leisureland,” when a 25-year lease expires.

Irene and Roy Milligan

For Irene and Roy Milligan — Susan Galenzoski’s parents — Leisureland was a paradise. They had struggled financially their entire lives.

“We never had a house that we had owned up to this point. We always had electricity, but we didn’t have running water or an indoor bathroom or anything like that,” Galenzoski recalled.

So when her parents were able to save enough money to buy a mobile home and then moved to Leisureland in 1976, it was a dream come true.

“It was very quiet. If you heard noises (outside), it was usually laughter or birds singing,” said Galenzoski.

Milligan trailer Leisureland circa 1976 (courtesy Susan Galenzoski)

At the time, the Milligans joined about 25 other families who lived next to the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. Galenzoski said her family had visited the area several times before her parents ultimately decided to move there.

The site was formerly home to a popular amusement park, built in the 1960s and owned by Michael Egnatoff, but the park closed down permanently before the site was repurposed for homes.

“We used to go out there for picnics. It was a very fun place to be. It was almost like being at a lake because you could hear the water. There was big trees and it was very secluded. There was no highway noise or road noise,” she said.

Galenzoski said when her parents moved to the area, all of the families had to own their mobile homes and no renters were allowed. That changed several years later, she said.

“All of the families that were there had plans to stay there for a long time,” she added.

The Meewasin Valley Authority (MVA) bought the land in 1997, and signed a 25-year lease with the residents living on the property.

By that time, more renters had come in, Gelenzoski said, and her parents had left the area. Her father had passed away and her mother couldn’t maintain the home by herself.

When Galenzoski heard about the MVA taking over the area, she said it felt like an era had come to an end.

Meewasin Valley Authority

According to Andrea Ziegler, director of operations for the MVA, there have been small cottages on that site since 1915. The older structures burned down sometime before 1950, when Egnatoff and his family bought the land.

They opened up the area to the public and built a small amusement park called “Leisureland,” for day trips.

“(There were) trampolines, (there was) a ferris wheel, there was a train and train tracks that went through the site. They also had an artist’s residence here and a community hall,” said Zeigler.

“Then they had people who started to request staying overnight … That really turned into longer term, so over the winter, and then what we now know today as Leisureland Community Co-operative.”

Vacant Trailer, August, 2022 (Lara Fominoff 650 CKOM)

When Egnatoff sold the land to the MVA, there were 18 mobile home residents living there. An agreement between the Co-operative and the MVA meant residents could stay for 25 years before the lease expired.

Over the last several years, Zeigler said notices have been sent out to the remaining residents, informing them that their lease would expire at the end of 2022, and that they had to have their trailers moved away.

“All of those communications that I have been involved in have always been very amicable. They understand the lease and they know it’s coming to an end. We’ve been working with them to make sure that the transition is as easy as possible,” she said.

That includes contacting local trailer parks that might be looking for tenants or to buy trailers, Zeigler noted

According to MVA CEO Andrea Lafond, the area purchased adds up to nearly 23 hectares, along with Yorath Island just across the South Saskatchewan River, which is nearly 69 hectares in size.

According to Lafond, the MVA is working on a site master plan and a “baseline inventory” of the animal and plant species in the area, which include bats, woodpeckers, owls, cottonwood and ash trees and natural grasslands.

Leisureland Area Plans

Alan Otterbein, Meewasin’s manager of design and development, said while the MVA is looking at how the land can be preserved, there are no concrete plans on exactly what will be done with it in the future.

“We really want to look at this site in a lot more detail,” he said. “We want to go through our master planning process for the site and really understand what we have for amenities, for environment. It’s a significant piece of mature forest.”

Otterbein said the land will be included in a resource management plan, and will possibly be home to an extension of the Meewasin Valley Trail.

“Getting people to the site is an important consideration,” he said. “We are looking at extending the trail from Saskatoon to this location, sort of being the southwest terminus of our trail system.”

The area will be secured and monitored, possibly with fences, gates or other materials, after the debris from abandoned trailers and the former amusement park has all been removed, Otterbein noted.

“We don’t want this to be a destination for people to do things that we don’t necessarily want to have on site,” he said.

There are also plans for public and local stakeholder input on the site’s future, which will include local First Nations and the City of Saskatoon, as well as education and conservation groups.

The master plan should be finished by the end of 2023.