For more than 25 years Westward Ho Campground manager Gord Toews has watched the Little Red Deer River threaten to spill banks in the spring and flood the popular recreation facility east of Sundre.
And this year, just like every year, he is confident the campground and its residents will meet whatever challenges Mother Nature wants to throw at them.
“It's the same as it's always been, you can only wait and see,” Toews said during a recent visit at the campground. “No one can know if the water will come up again this year. It's always a wait and see situation.
“You can't do anything along the riverbank without permission from the government and that's impossible. So we just wait and see.”
The campground has in fact flooded numerous times over the years, including a major flood in 2005 and smaller scale flooding in 2013.
Located south of Highway 27 on the banks of the Little Red Deer River, the facility is operated by the Westward Ho Campers Association and owned by Mountain View County. There are about 300 permanent camping sites, along with another 150 summer spots.
Because of the ever-present possibility of spring flooding, staff and campers at the facility have learned over the years to be prepared, he said.
“We've got a good evacuation plan and everything is in place,” he said. “We had everyone back in within a week (in 2013).”
The campground built a concrete berm around the washroom facility in 2012 and that helped prevent it from flooding in 2013, he noted.
Although the spring and summer camping season is still a few months away, Toews says things are already looking good.
“It looks like it's going to be a good year,” he said. “It's getting that nobody can afford to pull trailers anymore so they'd rather put them in one spot.
“And the trailers are so much bigger now. When we first came here if you had a 25-foot trailer it was huge and now people don't even want them because they are too small.”
Although most of the campers who use the facility do so during the summer months, there are a number of diehard campers who make good use of the place during the winter months, he noted.
“Some go cross-county skiing or go out west for snowmobiling,” he said.
Over the years the Westward Ho Campers Association has been a supporter of minor sports, the food bank and other community projects in the district.
“We are going to do some 4-H stuff this year,” he said.
For his part, Gord Toews is no stranger to being prepared for challenges – before becoming the campground manager at Westward Ho 28 years ago he was a member of the Canadian Army.
