Grand Valley Park reopens

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This article was published 22/06/2023 (1048 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Being at the grand reopening of a campground just west of Brandon brought back great memories for a young local man who remembered camping and exploring the trails around Grand Valley Park.

Sioux Valley Dakota Nation purchased the lease and operations of Grand Valley Park, about eight kilometres west of the Wheat City, and tied its grand opening celebration to National Indigenous Peoples Day on Wednesday.

The celebrations included drummers and dancers from Sioux Valley, games for kids, live music, wagon rides, a trade show and food.

Jesse Laird, who operated the Smoked and Sauced food truck on the grounds, said he was happy to be back and couldn’t stop thinking about how much fun he used to have “back in the day.”

“I would always come here with my high school friends, even times when we weren’t camping,” said Laird. “There is a viewing tower and a bunch of cool trails all around up top. I loved coming here.”

The park was formerly leased and operated by a Westman couple, Jordan Ross and his wife Katherine Jeroski. Ross, who was 41, died last summer. He had disappeared weeks earlier and while crews conducted searches in the area, Jeroski closed the campground. At the end of 2022, Jeroski announced on social media that she had passed the operations over to Sioux Valley.

For chief and council of the First Nation, taking over the park, cultural site, and campground was something they had to explore, said Sioux Valley Chief Jennifer Bone.

“We figured it was a great opportunity, because Sioux Valley has always utilized this area,” said Bone. “We’ve used it for cultural camps for high school students, and many other different events, and it will be a great attraction in the future. It’s such a beautiful place and is in our traditional territory as well.”

The park was declared a provincially designated historic site by the Historic Sites Advisory Board of Manitoba in 1948 due to the discovery of an ancient First Nations burial mound, bison kill site, and remains of an Indigenous settlement.

Today, the campground has 22 electrical sites, 20 unserviced sites, with washroom facilities and showers, said Bone, with room for improvement, but they don’t want to take on too much too soon.

“We do want to do some upgrades, like adding more picnic tables, and doing more advertising,” said Bone. “There is also the opportunity to develop more campsites, so, that’s something we’ll definitely look into.”

From working in finance with Sioux Valley, to becoming the campground manager, Robert Fleury said it was a unique opportunity to be outdoors year-round and help make a difference in his community.

“What this represents for Sioux Valley is a big building block — a tremendous stepping stone for everybody just to have some pride and recognition. The park is such a wonderful addition for our community, and I just wanted to help in any way I could to be a part of it.”

There are three components to the park, added Fleury — the campground, the tubing and the cultural aspect. There are plans to reopen the tubing area in the winter. And for the cultural piece, members will be offering different options for young people.

“The facility will be open to everyone; we just want this to be a very welcoming facility for everybody to come and use,” said Fleury. “And when cultural comes into play, we can have a teepee setup now, we can have cultural camps for youth who will re-educate themselves or learn wonderful things about our culture and our history, it’s very exciting all around.”

Improvements and changes are coming, said Fleury, but those are still in the planning stages because any formal adaptations to the park would need provincial approval.

As he looked around at the young people who were watching the dancers in the teepee area, Fleury said camping and being in the outdoors is a great distraction from their devices.

“I think it’s more so the experience that we want to give people and be a part of. To have an eight or nine-year-old come out here and say, ‘hey, I went camping.’ It’s more meaningful than whatever they accomplish on those devices.”

The campground is officially open for the season, with daily rates of $20 for a basic site, and $28 with power.

The day of celebrations also included campground and historic tours and ended with fireworks.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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