Robert Wires Discusses the Impact of Balsam Lake Provincial Park

Recorded at the Kirkfield Museum, February 26, 2022
Interviewer: Ian McKechnie
Videography: Ekaterine Alexakis

Duration: 1:58

Robert Wires sitting in front of white wall. Text on screen reads: Robert Wires Maintenance Foreman at Balsam Lake Provincial Park.

Robert Wires: Hi, I’m Robert Wires and I’m the Maintenance Foreman at Balsam Lake Provincial Park. Also, I grew up directly beside it on the family farm which, [uh], has been there since 1866. My earliest recollection of Balsam Lake Provincial Park was preschool, uh, it had been a cattle ranch before that…

[Black-and-white photograph of sign in overgrown field. Sign reads “Balsam Lake Provincial Park Department Of Lands And Forests.” Visible in the background is the highway and a hydro line.] Text on screen reads: Balsam Lake Provincial Park, early 1970s.

RW: The park, [uh], impacted the area on quite a few different levels. I would say one of the most important was employment; it gave good, steady jobs to a lot of people ‘cause at that time, the railway was shutting down the local area and a lot of the local 

[Black-and-white photograph of modern-looking stone-and-wood structure. To the right of the building is a sign which reads “Park Office Ministry Of Natural Resources.”] Text on screen reads: Balsam Lake Provincial Park, early 1970s.

RW: gentlemen, especially, a few of them were able to pick up work at the park. One of the main impacts was that Highway 46 was being rerouted, and for…a lot of the main season, and the road was cut off…Local farmers especially could petition to have a access route through the park to continue with operations

[Black-and-white photograph of dirt road cutting through field, with a small shack and a sign to the right of the road.] Text on screen reads: Balsam Lake Provincial Park, early 1970s.

RW: on the other side of the park because it took it what was a basically a mile into a five-mile detour. Now, so what that also did was change the school routes, so it became the Coby school and the Kirkfield school, the Victoria Road school,

[Black-and-white photograph of large group of people enjoying a picnic along the shore of Balsam Lake in 1966.] Text on screen reads: Barbecue at Balsam Lake Provincial Park, July 28, 1966.

RW: all those various schools, so a lot of these things were all interconnected. 

[Black-and-white photograph of men in aprons gathered around a long metal trough set on wooden sawhorses beneath cedar trees.] Text on screen reads: Barbecue at Balsam Lake Provincial Park, July 28, 1966.

RW: I’ve seen a change in our demographic; I’ve been there since 1998. At that time, our core visitor was, [um], basically your Oshawa/GM…and we had a lot of people that came up on a very, 

[Black-and-white photograph of overgrown field with tents, trash cans, picnic tables, and vehicles visible in the background and foreground.] Text on screen reads: Balsam Lake Provincial Park, early 1970s.

RW: almost long-term basis – and that’s where they spent their entire holiday. Now, we’re seeing a lot more transitional, people coming for weekends…We still have some core campers, but not the same volume that we used to. A lot of people are now using us, [uh], they’ll come up, try us out, then try a northern park.