In 2005 I was sitting down at my computer raking my brain about how I
could get the word out to the Canadian wakeboard community about this
awesome idea and opportunity that had come before me. The
idea was simple and I am sure it has come across the minds of probably
everyone of us that has strapped a board to our feet. The
idea being: How great would it be if Ontario riders could have their
own private lake? Ownership of a lake eliminates many
everyday problems, the most common being unruly neighbors who lack the
understanding of our sport, and thus are not the least bit sympathetic
to our wake and rail construction. For myself, I
mostly desired a location where I could build rails of my choosing,
leave them anchored in for a season and ride them with friends whenever
I wanted, without having to deal with government officials.
Although a private slider lake may not be one of everyone’s
dreams, it was one of mine and I seemed to have caught the bug pretty
bad. Driving 6 hours from Toronto to Le Beach Club,
Canada’s only cable park located 30 minutes outside of
Montreal was not an outrageous trip for me to take, two, three times a
year. So, the solution became quite obvious…I needed to buy
a lake closer to home and I needed to develop it into a sliders
paradise. This way, I, along with many other Ontarians would
have a closer location to get our fix and the wakeboarding community as
a whole, would have one more place in Canada where we could congregate
to shred.
Thus in 2006 Basecamp was born and we have been growing ever
since. We have now had over 200 people spend a week at the
camp, taught over 400 private lessons, hosted a honey moon
and have had travelers from Australia, Germany, Japan and the US to
visit our northern Ontario facility on Lake Rosseau. But most
excitingly we have had over 300 people ride on our private slider
lake. I am happy to say that of those 300 people who have
slide, easily 100+ had never slid in their life before. It
makes me so pumped to know that the lake has brought this experience to
so many people.
Other additions to our 250 acre camp over the last 2 years consist of,
a 2 km mountain bike trail, 2 in ground trampolines, horseshoes,
volleyball, hot tub, indoor mini ramp and a games room that hosts:
pool, ping pong, pinball, foosball, darts and a 10ft video gaming
screen. Myself, and our dedicated staff have pretty much
built everything that we could think of that would make the camp more
enjoyable for our guests and ourselves. Basecamp is a blast
and I welcome everyone to come out and enjoy Ontario’s
wakeboarding and wakeskating paradise. It has been built for
everyone and built to ride. So come meet some new friends, learn some
new tricks, push your boundaries and come have some fun!
