Lac Pelletier has recently built a permanent stage and concert area directly above our campsite, and we aren't very impressed. After a very shitty weekend earlier in the month, I wrote this letter to the park to voice my opinion, and hopefully take our ideas into consideration. I love our campsite dearly, but refuse to pay as much as we do and deal with all the bullshit they throw our way.
To Whom It May Concern:
Please consider this our formal complaint regarding “Shake The Lake” held at the lake earlier this month. Admittedly, we were a little bit annoyed when we first heard it would be taking place so close to the campsites, and we contemplated staying home, but decided we weren’t going to let one evening of music and partying ruin the last long weekend of the summer for us. We made the decision not to attend the party based on the reasoning that we had no idea where the proceeds made would be going, and we didn’t feel that spending $30 per person plus drinks was worth it when we could hear the music at our campsite plain as day, and enjoy our pre-purchased beverages from the comfort of our own site.
We went to bed early Friday night, knowing that on Saturday the music would be played until 2:00AM. We found this slightly unjust as we always strictly abide by the regular 11:00PM quite time rule, and it had just been thrown out the window for a weekend party. Putting that aside, we went on as we normally would Saturday, and at around 8:00PM, two people came walking down the hill behind us from the party and started barking at our dog, who was tied up as the park rules suggest he be. As you can imagine, the dog didn’t like this much, and started barking back. After we got him calmed down, the couple proceeded to walk right through our campsite, across the lawn right in front of us, down onto our dock. Knowing that once our dock is in the water it becomes available to the public, we left them alone, and continued on trying to enjoy our evening. About half an hour later, a boat pulled up, tied on to our dock, spoke with us for a few minutes, and proceeded to head to the party. The gentleman was very polite in asking to park his boat there, but did mention he was “going to be drinking for a couple hours and then boating back home.” I’m thinking security could have had a bit of control over the drunk drivers, but obviously no one thought about the drunken boaters. We packed everything away for the night, leaving nothing appealing out for anyone to wreck or steal, and decided to head to bed sometime near midnight. We lay in bed for close to two hours tossing and turning because the music was so bitterly loud, and our eardrums were throbbing inside our camper. After managing to finally doze off, we were awoken by the music being cranked up even louder, and at this point, as you can imagine, we were no longer happy campers. We tried our best to stick it out, but as 2:00AM passed, the band had quit playing and excruciatingly annoying opera music proceeded to rattle our windows for at least another forty five or fifty minutes. At 3:00AM, after we both had headaches, we decided it was no longer bearable, and packed everything up in the middle of the night and headed home. As we followed our one-way road out, and left the park through the south end, we had to completely stop in the middle of the road, because this of course, was the best possible location for people to congregate after leaving the party. Unfortunately, security was also taking part in the road party, therefore obviously not keeping people off the road, or paying any attention to where everyone from the party was going. After making our way through the crowd with the boat in tow, we were stuck following a vehicle to Darling’s Beach carrying at least 15 people in the bed of the truck. We suppose this was a way to prevent drunk driving, but security should have had their ducks in a row and told the driver to make two trips instead of allowing so many people to jam unsafely in the back of a truck so feet were dangling over the tailgate, and the people sitting near the edges needed to place their arms in front of others to prevent their falling right off the tailgate. Now we’re not sure what the park pays for security, but you might want to re-evaluate their compensation because after running into our lake neighbor in the grocery store on Monday and hearing what she had to say, we’ve come to the conclusion they obviously aren’t very competent. Apparently, she had to chase partiers out of her boat, which was parked on dry land right beside her camper shortly after everyone left the party location. They did leave upon her request, but managed to create a scene doing so, kicking every garbage and ash can down the row, hooting and hollering all the way. We’ll admit, if the music playing too loudly and later than advertised was the worst of our problems it would be much easier to get over, but we’ve also come to learn that we no longer have any fire wood, and our kind neighbor no longer has their hand built wooden step. As it seems, someone stole their steps, turned it upside down and carried away all our wood, which leads us to inquire where security was during this, as it obviously took some time to play out. Being “Lakeside” seasonal campers, we assumed that security within the campsites would have been high priority since we are so close to where the event actually took place. Hopefully, no one else experienced theft or damage like we did, but because we haven’t been back, we don’t know yet.
All we ask is that a little bit of extra thought goes into planning these events when it comes to how it will affect the seasonal campers. We understand you are doing all you can to raise money for the park and its surroundings, but the weekend partiers coming down one weekend of the year for a good time should not take priority over the people who continue to pay you year after year and respect your property all season long. It seems people tend to have a little bit more respect when they have to pay for things with their own money, and I don’t think that offering free camping at the ball diamonds had any positive result. You could have easily offered discounted camping, and maybe even provided a group fire pit with fire wood, and maybe, just maybe, the people in attendance would have had a little more respect towards our personal property, and you could have profited by pocketing a few extra dollars.
We know there is a multiple page waiting list for seasonal campsites, and that if we don’t like what is going on we have the option to pack up and not come back with out it affecting the park, but we do love the lake and we do love our location. We have our own close knit little community, and have become very good friends with all of our neighbors. It just doesn’t seem fair to have things like “Shake The Lake” ruin an entire weekend to give people who give nothing to the park a good place to party.
It would be greatly appreciated if you could pass on our concerns to anyone else this may affect, and we hope it affects your decision making on location and security details for any future events.
Sincerely,
Nick & Kim Giesbrecht
Seasonal Lakeside Campers
IMMD
15 years ago
