Nobles Point Marina

We’re back here at Nobles Point Marina.  We spent several years up here in a seasonal site until we got tired of the endless rain and wind that whips this lake into a frenzy.  Candle Lake is close enough to Saskatoon and Prince Albert to have become a favourite weekend destination for many Saskatchewan residents.  That has driven development at the lake to a fever pitch which we enjoyed watching while we were residents here but are glad to be away from now. 

Some of our friends must have been waiting for us to leave so that they could move into Candle Lake.  That gave us a good excuse to come back to visit them as well as some of the people we met while we had our seasonal site.  The landlord at Nobles Point is a local legend for his alcohol consumption so, not surprisingly he recognized our faces but could put a name to us.  Despite that he provided us a 30 amp plug overlooking the marina.  Rick never misses an opportunity to make a buck so we were confident he would find some place for us to park for a couple of nights. 

Its still early season so the park is only about half occupied and the marina looks empty.  There’s also lot of people here for the weekend to open up their cabins.  That was something we could never understand – why people would want to have a cabin to paint and fix the roof on and mow the grass at and pay taxes on and fix the well and pump the sewer at.  Cabin owners at Candle Lake have enjoyed some handsome capital gains over the last 10 years but the tradeoff in free time makes those gains seem less attractive to us. 

We had a great visit with Doug and Joanne last night and this morning.  This afternoon we tracked down Larry & Glennis and had a tour of their campground and private lake development on the west side of the lake.  When we left here 2-1/2 years ago Larry had a dream that he would carve a lake and campground out of what looked like a swamp to me.  He would drive me around the edges of the swamp and tell me about the vision he had for the property but all I could ever see was willows and swamp.  Today we saw about a dozen campsites and all but one of them is occupied.  Its still very much a work in progress but it is definitely coming together for them. 

The lake is still a long way in the future but they now have the water held at bay so that they can get at the clay that lies where the lake will be.  That allows them to claw the clay out of the ground with an ancient trackhoe and haul it to where the future campsites will be located.  It also allows them to sell some topsoil and clay fill to developers who are cashing in on the local property boom.

Some things never change and I have to be careful how specific the stories I tell are but the landlord here at Nobles Point continues to entertain both his tenants and the community with his alcohol induced activities.  I think the story of him being carried home from an evening campfire in a wheelbarrow is legend but it could just as easily be true.  One of his favourite tales is of walking in on some of his tenants who were well into a game of strip poker around their campfire.  Again the story may or may not be true but some of the tenants while we were here certainly enjoyed alcohol induced evening activities.