Alexandra Smith remembers the huge smile on her face as she wandered through Calaway Park when she was a kid.
Now, she said she loves to see that same look from other children as she looks out from her perch behind the concession stands at her longtime summer job.
“It makes me happy. I used to be that kid,” said Smith, a 17-year-old Bow Valley High School student who has worked at Calaway Park for the last two summers. “It was just so magical, just the whole environment…
“It made you feel a part of something.”
Western Canada’s largest outdoor family amusement park opened for the season on Saturday, and hundreds of excited youngsters, youth and grown-ups took advantage of the warm long weekend weather to indulge in a classic carnival throwback experience.
“Voooorrrtex!” yelled one boy as he raced toward the corkscrew roller coaster with both arms held high in the air.
“That was awesome!” said another to his parents while coming off the Timber Falls log ride.
Cochranite James Neilson and his family were one of the first to take a spin on the Dizzy Dragons: one of the park’s brand-new rides for 2017.
“It was fun,” said Neilson’s nephew, eight-year-old Chase Wastell, after braving the dragon’s fiery belly. “(I liked) making it go fast, just by steering the thingu.”
To accommodate crowds when the fun fair is in operation through the spring and summer, Calaway Park’s workforce balloons from 30 full-time employees to 750 seasonal ones – many of whom are in high school, like Smith.
Smith recalled seeing a flyer advertising jobs at the park when she was 15 years old and decided to apply.
“I wanted to learn how to cook,” she said, adding she cut her teeth at the pizza place and in the Carousel Café. This season, she earned a spot in the newly-renovated Carousel Kitchen, which has three new Canada 150-centric poutines on the menu.
“I heard it was a really great first job.”
Marketing co-ordinator Chelsea Barteaux – who has worked at the park for 13 years – also started when she was 15, in the candy store.
“It really is that this is their first job, and we take that very seriously,” she said.
“We want them to come here and have a positive first work experience.”
Young workers are put through a full training program before they hit the funland floor, and Calaway offers $500 scholarships every year to 25 qualifying high school employees for a post-secondary financial boost.
Once youth graduate high school and move to university, Barteaux said many choose to continue to work at Calaway and are often moved up to more lucrative team leader positions.
“It’s about empowering our young people,” said Barteaux, adding while young workers learn responsibility and professionalism at the park, the most important thing she hopes they take with them is a sense of play.
“If you can’t have fun with this job,” she joked, “I don’t know where you’re going to have fun.”
The fun fair opens on weekends only until school is out in June, then expands to full-time summer hours until the end of August. Calaway pares down operations to weekends once school starts up again until the autumn shutdown in mid-October.
