ESTEVAN, Sask. – When Brad Dutton decided to make his Hidden Valley Golf and RV Campground a seasonal campground, even he was surprised at the demand.
“We booked up within 48 hours,” he said.
That means all of their 88 stalls are booked for the entire summer, but not by tourists.
“It’s a phenomenon in this area: people buy a camper, park it five minutes from home and stay in it all summer – and probably a third of the people are workers, oil field workers, Boundary Dam,” said Dutton.
Local people like Doug Marchesy. He and his wife “lucked out” in that they were able to find a condo, which they’ve recently sold to retire in BC. However, Marchesy spent almost two years bouncing from hotel to hotel.
“They were one hundred plus per night. And then they were very hard to find too, unless you booked something way ahead and long-term.”
The campground by contrast was much preferable.
“You’ve got room, more room, freedom, you’ve got your own TV,” said Marchesy.
Not everyone is as pleased.
“People might be coming even just to pass through Estevan on their way to another destination and if they want to spend a night or two in the community, it definitely makes it tough for them,” explained Michel Cyrenne from Tourism Estevan.
The immediate issue speaks to the larger problem of Estevan’s housing shortage. Even with 585 new housing units built in the last five years, the situation has only slightly improved – and there are still 1100 vacant jobs which need to be filled.
“To build that housing, you need to bring people in to work. And where are those people going to stay when they’re building that housing? So it’s kind of a catch-22,” Cyrenne said.
A second work camp just north of the city is set to open sometime in June and will house over 300 people. It’s badly needed for workers at the $1.2 billion Boundary Dam project. Meanwhile, developers are building more housing and Cyrenne says things are improving.
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