Kenosee Gardens & Clarke’s Resort, Kenosee Lake, SK! “The Gardens,” is a Kenosee Lake institution and entirely unlike anything to be found anywhere in the prairie West. Our recent memories of this beloved music venue might be of a “Trooper” concert in the 80s or Buddy Knox playing in the 50s …but Kenosee Lake’s premier dance hall has a history that extends back more than a century now! Dance halls were a significant part of Kenosee Lake’s earliest tourist businesses. A couple small dance halls sprung up before 1915, including the Christopher family’s ‘Tumble Inn’ in 1909 and Clarke’s Resort’s first dance hall built that same year. New, much larger, dance halls were built at Kenosee to replace these around 1915, accommodating increased demand. Vastly larger ones replaced even these in the early 1930s as demand skyrocketed – the We Non Cha and the Kenosee Gardens competed for nightly crowds in excess of a thousand in the early Swing Era of the “big bands.” The We Non Cha Summer Resort, and dance hall, was closed in 1942 when purchased by Clarke’s Resort, and quickly faded out of memory – wartime had taken the young crowds far away from Kenosee’s shores, and We Non Cha’s aging founder was looking to quietly retire. Clarke’s Resort, however, would emerge from the wartime slump as an even greater success than had been seen before. Their flagship, Kenosee Gardens, boomed and solidified itself as an icon and institution in itself in the decades that followed. Kenosee Gardens didn’t spring up overnight, however, but was the culmination of many years of hard work and gradual expansion at Clarke’s Resort. Born in India in 1868, Reay B. Clarke found his way to Moosomin where he operated the Grosvenor Hotel. He married Gertrude Page, a local Moosomin girl born in 1888, and the two operated their hotel together until they sold it a year later in 1906. With their newborn son Charlie under tow, R.B. and Gertrude arrived at Kenosee Lake on June 11, 1907, where they hoped to build a cottage and live a quiet, peaceful, and secluded life by the lake. However, Kenosee Lake had very different plans for them. When the Clarke’s arrived, there were three large plots on the northeast shore of Kenosee Lake, each roughly 40 acres in size. They purchased the most easterly plot from a Moosomin acquaintance named C. Brown, who had bought it from the original owner, James Williams, who had owned the old Mitre Hotel at Cannington Manor. At the time, the plot directly west of theirs was home to the Christopher family’s “Pioneer Rest Resort,” where the large We Non Cha Summer Resort would be built in a few years time. West of the Christopher family’s home and hotel was the McNaughton property, where the McNaughton’s of Moosomin lived, and the famed future General Andrew McNaughton was preparing to enter the Canadian Militia in 1909. “Ma” Clarke, as Gertrude became known, quickly began entertaining tourists out of necessity. In 1907, the Clarke’s built a two-room log house with four “tents” attached as bedrooms for their own use, expanding and rebuilding their home in successive years. Many tourists arrived at Kenosee by “democrat and buggy” that summer on the dirt roads and trails leading through the woods. If a surprise rain came along, these tourists quickly found themselves unable to traverse the muddy trails/roads back home, and were forced by necessity to stay longer at the lake. Clarke’s Resort started, therefore, as “Ma” Clarke simply did her best to accommodate the stranded travellers, cooking meals for the campers who had ended up at their doorstep. They had bought a boat for their own personal use at the lake, but ended up renting it continuously that summer. During their first winter at Kenosee, later that year, they bought 10 more boats and soon found themselves in the boat renting business in the summer of 1908! “Ma” Clarke quickly developed a reputation as a kind and generous woman of extraordinary charisma and charm. Her grandchildren recalled that the “Indians,” of the nearby White Bear First Nation, used to come to her to trade furs for groceries, finding other merchants in the region to be hostile to them. They brought many other problems and concerns to her for help, including many sick and injured people. “Ma” Clarke used to say that she had been a “doctor, merchant, and chef” at Kenosee Lake in those years. Just two years following their arrival at Kenosee, around 1909, the Clarke’s built their first dance hall and 6 cabins to rent out. They cleared spaces for campers to pitch tents, bought more boats, and began building a few new cabins every year, slowly expanding bit by bit. By 1915, they were due for a large expansion, as the new We Non Cha Summer Resort next door was in a position to offer tough competition with a large new hotel, dance hall, and waterfront store and marina. By 1917, the Clarke’s had built a large store, new dance hall, and hotel as well, thus vying for a substantial stake in Kenosee’s fledgling tourist trade. Land was surveyed on their property, lots sold, and local people began building their own private cottages in a small community next to the Clarke’s businesses. Business boomed at Clarke’s Resort through the 1920s and into the 1930s. By the early 30s, the Chalet and golf course were constructed, while the sub-divisions of McNaughton Heights, Sunnybank, and Sandy Beach were opened up to prospective cottage owners who were looking to build summer cottages inside Moose Mountain Provincial Park itself. When the We Non Cha Summer Resort completed a second vast re-expansion of their facilities next door to the Clarke’s, with an enormous new dance hall completed in 1932 …the Clarke’s decided they too needed to once again expand the scope of their enterprise. Kenosee Gardens opened on May 10, 1933, to instant acclaim. The Clarke’s spared no expense in its construction, outfitting a new café, store, and ‘state of the art’ dance hall in an impressive building on the Kenosee Lake waterfront. Kenosee Gardens was not a simple “backwater” dance hall, but quickly became a venue that was renowned across Canada. They hired their own in-house “big band,” a ten-piece orchestra, called “The Knights of Rhythm,” while the competing dance hall at We Non Cha had their own “Silver Tone Seven”. The local “big bands” hired musicians from across the country and played nightly, except when special guest performances came to town. Admission in the 1930s was twenty-five cents on weeknights, and fifty cents on Saturdays. Popular bands, like the Gene Dlouhy Band, played there to sold out crowds. Even more remarkably, Kenosee Gardens hosted veritable “superstars” of the Big Band Era like Wayne King, whose 1931 song “Dream a Little Dream of Me” was a #1 hit across Canada and the United States …being remade dozens of times over the years since by stars like Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Michael Buble, and even the band ‘My Morning Jacket’. The famous “Mart Kenney and His Western Gentlemen” played at Kenosee Gardens to a record crowd of 1500 in 1944. Kenosee Gardens was not simply a popular bar at a lively lake resort, but was and remains a site of extraordinary cultural significance to Saskatchewan. Clarke’s Resort & Kenosee Gardens were always run as a family business. R.B. and “Ma” Clarke’s sons Hugh “Puddy” Clarke and Charlie Clarke worked at Kenosee from their earliest years until their final days. Hugh “Puddy” Clarke, his wife Chris Houseman Clarke, and his mother Gertrude “Ma” Clarke ran the businesses as R.B. Clarke began to ail in the 1930s, passing away in 1941. “Puddy,” Chris, and “Ma” continued to run the resort until 1956 when “Puddy,” now in poor health himself, sold Kenosee Gardens and Clarke’s Resort to L.J. Hirtle. “Puddy” passed away shortly after in 1958, and “Ma” Clarke in 1966, after 60 years at Kenosee Lake. Charlie Clarke worked at Clarke’s Resort casually in the 1930s, leaving Kenosee Lake to farm nearby. He returned to Kenosee in the 1950s where he and his wife Priscilla worked for L.J. Hirtle at Kenosee Gardens for many years, and as part of the Park Maintenance staff. After 1956, L.J. Hirtle continued to make a stunning success of Kenosee Gardens as a dance hall and music venue. Successful local bands continued to play at the venue throughout the decades – like our own “Keith Allison and The Tornadoes,” who regularly played at Kenosee Gardens in the mid-1960s! “The Gardens,” as it began to be casually known as, continued to host extraordinary artists ...some of great fame. Buddy Knox, best known for his 1957 hit rock ‘n roll song “Party Doll,” played many shows to sold-out audiences in the late 50s. “Chad Allan and the Expressions,” played to audiences in the early 60s shortly before the band changed their name to “The Guess Who” in 1965, finding international stardom shortly after with songs like their signature classic, “American Woman.” The mid-1980s saw “Trooper” play their international hits “Raise a Little Hell” and “We’re Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)” to sold-out crowds …leaving a lasting memory for yet another generation that loved Kenosee Lake for its vibrant cultural life as well as its natural beauty. Kenosee Gardens had earned a reputation for helping to cultivate Canadian pop music – a tradition that continued under successive owners through to the 1990s to see famous Canadian bands like “Harlequin,” “Street Hart,” “Hypno Go Go,” and “See Spot Run” feature to sold-out audiences from all over the prairies. Across more than 70 years and from humble beginnings at Clarke’s Resort, Kenosee Gardens has been more than just one of Saskatchewan’s most famous and iconic dance halls of the Swing Era … “The Gardens” became a venue that helped cultivate a Canadian tradition in popular music through to the 1990s, making it a cultural treasure of the prairies and a true “home” to Canadian music of the twentieth century.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 02:05:47 +0000