Temple Gardens gets a facelift as Moose Jaw attraction celebrates 30 years

A popular location for spa treatments and healing waters has been getting some TLC of its own.

A ribbon cutting on Monday marked the grand re-opening of the mineral pool and thermal spa at Temple Gardens Hotel & Spa in downtown Moose Jaw. The $2.1 million renovation is happening alongside a $16 million revamp of the hotel.

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“You get to a point where you’ve done something to a certain standard for 30 years, and if you want to stay at the top of the industry, you need to now invest. You need to invent something new,” general manager David Wood said.

That new experience is a full thermal spa. Wood explained that guests start out in a dry sauna or a steam room, then take a “cold plunge” up to their necks for 30 seconds.

“Then sit down and rest, take some hydration, feel absolutely great. That’s the whole thermal spa experience right there, and it’s a great experience,” he explained.

The improvements required a pool closure lasting only three weeks. Wood said when people ask him how they could get the work completed so quickly, his response was that they had little choice.

“When we close our mineral pool, we have a lot less guests here in Temple Gardens,” he explained. “That means all of the other businesses downtown feel that as well, and I’m sure they were counting down the days until we were fully re-opened.”

Roughly half of the hotel’s guest rooms have now been renovated, and Wood said the remodelling will also include the building’s exterior and the public and convention spaces.

New First Nation owners making investment

Temple Gardens first opened in 1996, tapping into ancient mineral waters from a geothermal well. In 2022, it was acquired by the Peepeekisis Cree Nation.

“When we purchased it, I think it built up pride and it built up our economic development a lot, and I see that from being here today,” Allan Bird, chairman of Peepeekisis Developments Ltd., said on Monday.

Peepeekisis Developments Ltd. chairman Allan Bird, speaking at Temple Gardens in Moose Jaw on June 29, 2026. (Geoff Smith/980 CJME)

Bird said Peepeekisis and management firm Globex both understood the need to make improvements to the facility.

“They noticed some things in the pool area. They noticed a lot of repair needed, so Peepeekisis, PDL and Peepeekisis’ governing body agreed to move forward and get the funding in place to do a full renovation,” he said.

He added the Peepeekisis and Moose Jaw have been working very closely together, and said the First Nation was happy to help support the arena with a naming rights deal.

“We want to have our footprint in the door,” Bird said. “We want to be a part of Moose Jaw. We want to show them as this journey of reconciliation goes on. We heard that word over and over. We want to build that relationship.”

He recalled the history of the Cree people camping in the warm area where Moose Jaw now sits.

“They would camp here in the hunting days of the buffalo, and they would camp in Cypress Hills, but they would come from the bushland of Peepeekisis over there. Archie Peepeekisis wandered the whole area. He never camped in one area,” he recalled.

“We all shared everything, we hunted, we camped and traded, and we want to do that modern way. When we sing those songs, those drum songs, those honour songs, we move ahead and we respect those that are going on.”

Wood said he’s pleased with the investment.

“They bought this hotel and believed in the city and invested in this hotel,” he said.

“We had very little investment in the hotel over the previous years, but they bought this hotel with the intention to bring it to the very top of the industry, and this is a major, major milestone. You know they talk the talk, but this is a major milestone in walking that walk.”