It has been an eventful week for Castle Fun Park, which is currently focusing on efforts to reopen following a stormy week for B.C. and the Fraser Valley.
Daily Hive spoke to Brian Wiebe, owner and director of Castle Fun Park, about what the last week has been like.
He shared some interesting insights into the history of the beloved spot, which his family has been running for over 35 years.
While Wiebe couldn’t tell us exactly when the park is going to reopen, he did say that there would be an update soon and gave us a bit of a progress report.
“At this point, we are through the worst of it,” he said, reflecting on the weather, adding, “We’re sort of in a clean-up stage.”
The year 2021 was devastating for the Fraser Valley and Castle Fun Park. The park had to close for a significant amount of time as it underwent restoration efforts.
“This is something that we’ve lived with for the past… I don’t know how many years since my parents first opened the place, back in 1990, 1989. So it’s always a bit of stress.”
Wiebe pointed out that his father used to watch the bottom of the bridge to see how high the water level would go, and if it touched a certain point, there was a cause for concern. He added that since the 2021 flood, there are some new markers that they’re looking at.
“It has never been as drastic as it was in 2021, and whether you attribute that to climate change or what have you, it seems to be happening a lot more often.”
Wiebe said he keeps telling people it used to be called the 100-year flood.
“Now it feels more like an every other year or annual flood that we’re going to need to be prepared for.”
We wondered what kind of governmental support Castle Fun Park receives when situations like 2021 occur, or this week.
“I will say federally, if they had provided the funding that was requested, this would have circumvented the pain for all of the small businesses and people in the Sumas Prairie. So that would have solved the issue,” Wiebe said.
He added that they now have to spend a lot of money to put the flood protections outside their walls to be able to survive the next one, which could really be any time, including this season still.
One thing we’ve observed in our coverage of Castle Fun Park is just how loyal the community is, and we wanted to hear Wiebe’s thoughts about the support.
“It is absolutely heartwarming,” he said.
Castle Fun Park put out an operational update on Facebook on Dec. 17, and in response, Wiebe said he read just one comment out of over 100 that could’ve maybe been taken a little bit negatively.
“It feels amazing to have that support.”
Make sure to follow Castle Fun Park on Facebook for the latest information on when it reopens.