In the mid nineteen-eighties, the Alberta government began developing a dam on the Oldman River north of Pincher Creek. By 1991 (or 1992 … online resources disagree on the year), the Oldman River Dam was complete and began filling its reservoir. With that, the Oldman Dam Provincial Recreation Area was born.
I can’t help but wonder what the original hope was for this recreation area. A new lake in sunny, hot, southern Alberta would surely be popular. Toss in some shiny, new campgrounds and day use areas and just sit back and welcome all the people. If you build it, they will come, right?
Yeah, there’s wind. Lots of it. And the reservoir isn’t full all summer. BC mountains beckon just to the west, too. Whatever the reason, something seems to have kept the masses away. At least that’s my interpretation of the overgrown grounds and deteriorating amenities, not to mention the lack of people on a long weekend.
Cottonwood and Castleview Campgrounds
I’m one to talk, of course. We’ve camped in just about every provincial park and provincial recreation area in the province’s south but I’ve resisted going to Oldman Dam for over a decade. Why? Umm … did I mention the wind?
We finally rectified this oversight on the May long weekend. If you want to call it that. Perhaps a little hyperbole on my part. It’s not like we had avoided camping in Kananaskis for over a decade.
We chose to spend our long weekend at Cottonwood Campground located in the river valley below the dam. I didn’t expect much from this campground and was delighted to have underestimated the place. You can read more about it here.
We chose not to spend our long weekend at Castleview Campground located up on the plateau. Oh, lordy, am I glad we didn’t pick this campground. You can read more about that here.
Those are the two primary campgrounds in the Oldman Dam Provincial Recreation Area. There are two others, along with five day use areas and a lookout. With Saturday overcast and threatening rain, we decided to tour the reservoir, stopping at every named entity in the recreation area. We even poked around a dead end road that once crossed where the reservoir now resides.
The following summarizes what we saw at each spot. If you’re contemplating a day trip for a picnic or a rustic camping weekend in the Oldman Dam Provincial Recreation Area, hopefully this will give you some help.
Boulder Run Day Use Area
Boulder Run Day Use Area is the only such area located below the dam. It runs along the north side of Oldman River from where the water exits the generating station to the highway bridge at the east end of Cottonwood Campground.
This puts it right in the thick of things, so to speak. It’s walkable from both major campgrounds (Cottonwood and Castleview) and it offers a unique view of the dam itself. Add in the river and cliff face across it and the setting is modestly appealing. Granted you won’t see the mountains, but being in the valley near the dam does offer somewhat of a windbreak.
The Boulder Run Day Use Area can be divided into three parts. There’s a group picnic shelter and parking at the far end with close-up views of the spillway. This includes a large, three-sided picnic shelter, a gravel parking lot and turn around, and a pit toilet.
There’s a small, treed picnic area halfway down the road. This includes a couple picnic tables with fire pits under some cottonwood trees and a gravel, roadside parking lot.
And finally, there’s another group spot nearest the entrance that appears to be a pseudo-swimming area. This includes another large, three-sided picnic shelter, a singular picnic table, two pit toilets with adjoining changerooms, and a manmade pond fed by the river.
I’m not sure I’d be swimming in the river here, or the pond. It’s sure to be cold throughout the summer. And while that may be refreshing on a hot, August day, the pond and river appear more favoured by geese than humans.
Spillway Lookout
Heading up out of the valley, past Castleview Campground, and onto the Oldman River Dam towards to the spillway is the … brace yourself … Spillway Lookout. This is nothing more than a small observation area consisting of a gravel parking lot and some educational displays regarding the dam’s construction.
I imagine when the spillway is being used, the Spillway Lookout offers some spectacular views. The rest of the time it’s, well, it’s not really much of anything. Worth a quick stop, mind you, to read the placards, but there is nothing else to do here.
Windy Point Campground and Day Use Area
Windy Point is the largest of the day use areas in the Oldman Dam Provincial Recreation Area. Comprised of a day use area, a small FCFS campground, a boat launch, and the closest thing to a beach in the PRA, it all looks quaint from above.
At ground level, it gets a little shaky. For starters, there are almost no trees anywhere. All around is nothing but grassland with only a couple ratty trees near the reservoir’s edge. And while it was calm during our brief investigation, I’m guessing the name was chosen for a reason.
The small campground, centrally located in the day use area, has eleven campsites on either side of the access road. Each is rather simple with an overgrown gravel laneway and a concrete, wood-topped picnic table. Four of the sites have a two-sided windbreak around their picnic table, the others are out in the open.
On either side of the entrance road there is additional parking in front of these campsites. I’m not sure why this was done though I suspect these sites are more often used as day use picnic spots than actual campsites.
Two pit toilets are situated beside the interior facing campsites. These pit toilets include changerooms and an accessible stall.
To the west of the campground is a turnaround with even more parking and a pit toilet. To the east, down an extension of the road, is another turnaround with a handful of strictly day use picnic spots and a pit toilet. These spots all have two-sided windbreaks around their picnic tables and a sweeping view of the reservoir.
North of the strip of campsites is an extended green space bordering a gravelly beach. You won’t build much in the way of sandcastles at this beach, but it’s about the only spot on the entire reservoir that leaves exposed ground for sunbathing when the reservoir is full. Ya can’t be too picky in these parts.
Within that green space there are three more picnic spots with windbreaks. These are a bit odd as there is no obvious access to them other than walking across the grass. If coming from the parking lot, that requires cutting through a campsite. Perhaps in this case, it’s a good thing not much camping goes on here.
Finally, the boat launch is located well south of the campsites and day use areas. It is accessed by a separate offshoot from the main entrance road. There is a large, gravel parking lot for vehicles and boat trailers. The launch itself is mostly made of concrete sloping down into the reservoir. With the varying depth of water in the reservoir throughout the summer, the launch is quite lengthy to accommodate.
Summerview
Summerview isn’t an official entity within the Oldman Dam Provincial Recreation Area. It shows up on maps a couple kilometres north of Windy Point along a road that used to pass through where the reservoir now exists.
We thought it looked interesting. In addition to the lost road, there is a rectangular hedge in the field next to the road suggesting a former building once resided there. It felt a little ghost towny, so we went to snoop around.
By doing so, we upset a pair of nesting hawks. They have built their nest on a tall pole I deduce has been placed there for this exact purpose. Beautiful birds but certainly perturbed by our presence.
You can’t drive down to the water. A fence restricts vehicle traffic from traversing the final hundred metres or so. We did that on foot and spent some time exploring the reservoir at low water level. Found, let me check, oh yeah, nothing.
Island View Day Use Area
Heading around to the north side of the reservoir there’s very little in the way of recreational facilities until you get to the far west end. The first is Island View Day Use Area and it’s 17.5 km from Windy Point.
Island View is rather basic. There are a couple permanent picnic tables next to an oversized gravel parking lot. A single pit toilet and, surprisingly, a boat launch rounds out the facilities.
That boat launch is odd considering how little else is here. It’s a long, sloping launch like the one at Windy Point. Not that a boat launch can’t be an almost solitary amenity, but it felt a little out of place. Only when I began writing this post did I discover the truth. There used to be a campground here too.
Satellite imagery shows the remnants of the campground, something you couldn’t see on the ground. And it was a fairly substantial campground at that. Nothing like Cottonwood, mind you, but much bigger than the one at Windy Point. There seems to have been at least two dozen FCFS campsites around a single loop.
North Fork Campground and Day Use Area
Across the Oldman River channel from Island View is North Fork Campground and Day Use Area. This day use area borders the place where the Oldman River enters the reservoir and when the reservoir is full becomes a lakeside campground.
North Fork is also quite small with only a couple modest picnic spots and a pit toilet. There is no boat launch here but there are seven basic campsites. Each campsite has a gravel driveway and a concrete picnic table. There are no firepits and no trees. It’s certainly private but likely windy more days than not.
Yet another boat launch resides here. There’s no shortage of boat launches in this PRA, I’ll give them that. It’s also big and slopes all the way down to shallow water.
It’s interesting that these seven campsites were retained while the larger campground at Island View was removed entirely. Says something about the historical demand for camping in the area, I’m afraid.
Todd Creek Day Use Area
Rounding the west end of the reservoir brings you to Todd Creek Day Use Area. Another small day use area that’s not on the reservoir proper but alongside a creek that eventually enters it.
Oddly enough, during our grand tour of the Oldman Dam Provincial Recreation Area on a May long weekend, this was the only place outside the two main campgrounds to have people present.
A group of kayakers was disembarking from the creek at the end of what sounded like a class for beginners. They were using the boat launch, a smaller, narrower one designed specifically for non-powered craft.
The day use facilities include a few picnic spots along the entrance road between it and the creek plus a pit toilet. There are even a couple taller trees that provide a little shade over one or two of the picnic tables.
The most intriguing aspect to Todd Creek is the phenomenal house next door. An old, field-stone home, I immediately fell in love with this place. Alas, it looks like it is occupied. Lucky bastards.
Castle River Day Use Area
The final leg of our trip was around the south side of the reservoir. There are no facilities on the actual reservoir in this area. Castle River Day Use Area is on the Castle River south of Highway 3 over six kilometres south of the reservoir. The river channel fills up a fair distance south when the reservoir is full and may reach this day use area.
Getting here is a bit confusing. There is no access directly from Highway 3, despite it being quite close. Instead, you need to drive a bit out of the way along back roads and approach from the south.
The effort is not rewarded. There’s very little here on what is little more than a peninsula between the river and a pond that floods as the reservoir fills (I think). A few picnic spots in the grass around a pit toilet is pretty much the extent of the place. Some parking as well. It’s rather underwhelming.
I actually used this pit toilet. It’d been a long drive around the reservoir. In all my life I’ve never used a pit toilet that was completely dry. In fact, I could see daylight coming into the toilet “reservoir.” Later investigation showed an animal had dug a hole underneath and was using it as a home. Sorry, little buddy.
Summary
Having completed our tour of Oldman Dam Provincial Recreation Area, we returned to our campsite at Cottonwood Campground. My first impressions of that campground were reinforced by what we saw everywhere else; Oldman Dam Provincial Recreation Area is in decline.
This saddens me and I’m not entirely sure why. If anything, I wholly understand why this is happening. The undoubtedly lofty hopes when the place was built didn’t pan out. Unrelenting wind and treeless land will do that.
I hate seeing park infrastructure left to just wither away. I’d love to pound my desk and unleash a scathing rebuttal of government and their unwillingness to maintain these public places, but I’d be …
Well, I wouldn’t be lying, but I’d certainly be a hypocrite. As much as I value public parks and similar spaces, I doubt I’ll ever come back to Oldman River Provincial Recreation Area. It’s just not that appealing.
I’m not a sun-worshipper and I’m emphatically a wind-loather. With far more attractive places like Chinook, Castle, Beauvais, and Waterton less than an hour away to the west and south, it’s hard to find a reason to come here. That is both a pity and a truth.