Staff
There was plenty of grunting and even some sweating as the members of Rimbey Fish and Game rolled up their sleeves and dug into some considerable toil during a work bee held last week at the Open Creek Campgrounds west of the community.
With up to ten members working nine or ten hour days for four to five days, the number of man-hours dedicated to the various projects at the site amount to several hundred, but all involved said they had a great time in the beautiful setting.
“We’ve been out here at Open Creek for four days now and we’ve got quite a few dead trees that we’ve taken down,” said member Ken Holland. “We’re also working on installing some playground equipment and we’re digging new ditches at the entranceway because the water keeps running up onto the road.”
In addition to that, other completed tasks included filling a number of holes with gravel, fixing up a number of campsites and erecting a new safety barricade, all of which will be funded by revenue generated from camping fees collected in 2008.
“Last year we did really well,” Holland said. “Pretty well all the money from those campers goes back into the park. We just kind of do things as we see fit. Being as it was such a good year last year, we decided to install the playground equipment.”
Despite still being relatively early in the season, Holland said they’ve already welcomed a number of over-nighters to the park that caters to rustic campers in that there is no power or dumping station however for a nominal fee there’s plenty of firewood and running water.
Of course, the membership needed a bit of extra help and that came in the form of Dave Lowe and his expertise on the backhoe as well as from the trio of Lillian Duke, Vivian Holland and Shirley Dudenhoeffer who made sure everyone was well fed.
“We’re the cooks and it’s been going really well,” the ladies said. “We’ve had great weather and we’re cooking lots for these guys. They have to cook for themselves in the morning, but we feed them the rest of the day.”