We visited Nova Scotia’s only abandoned theme park to find out what’s still standing

Upper Clements mungo park was a summertime staple fibre for generations of Nova Scotian kids until it unsympathetic land in 2019.

Seven years later, there’s practically nothing left of the Annapolis Valley theme park — but the local council hopes that will soon change with the reissuing of a call for development proposals for the land.

“It’s definitely a shadow of its former life,” said Dustin Enslow, deputy warden of the County of Annapolis, standing in front of the foundation of the park’s torn-down entryway.

“You can see what it used to be, but what we’re really focusing on is what it could be.”

Families and school groups used to flock to Upper Clements Park, nestled on 26 hectares just beyond Annapolis Royal, N.S., on the shores of the Bay of Fundy.

Prime attractions included a flume ride, a haunted house and one of Canada’s only wooden roller-coasters.

Today, the space where the flume ride stood is an empty field. The haunted house caught fire and burned down in 2023 after vandals broke in. And there’s no trace of the roller-coaster’s timbers on the hills it used to roll over.

What's happening with this abandoned theme park in Nova Scotia?

Anyone who visited the park as a kid or teen would be hard pressed to recognize it now. The only attractions still standing are the zip line that crossed over a pond and the mini-putt course that was located on an island below it. The boardwalk is crumbling and cordoned off by caution tape and old train trestles stand empty, clogged with new growth. Even the pond itself is gone, undammed to allow a stream to return to its natural state.

When the park closed, it was the final end of a venture that began 30 years earlier, when it opened in 1989 as a property of the provincial government.

The project drew criticism for its cost, which ran to $23 million, and for its location, in a relatively sparsely populated part of the province almost 2½ hours away from Halifax, Nova Scotia’s main population centre.

The plan was for the province to run the park, but after a few seasons of less-than-expected attendance, with visitor numbers hitting only about 50 per cent of projections in the second year, the demands of profitability began to pile up and new operators were found.

The park changed hands several times. First, in 1994, it was leased to a business group from Hong Kong, and then in 1997 to a non-profit group of local businesses. That group bought the park for $1 in 2007.

Over its life, the park received injections of cash from the provincial government, including $1.3 million for improvements when it sold the park in 2007 and $300,000 in 2017 for more improvements.

Two years later, it closed for good.

The municipality bought the land for $600,000 in 2020 and announced that a satellite of Gourdonstoun School, the elite private school whose alumni include King Charles, would be built on the former grounds.

But that deal fell apart after the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia ruled that the land transfer had been conducted illegally, leaving the $62-million development scuttled and the land back in the hands of the county.

Since then, it’s struggled to find a developer who wants to take on the site, with the most recent call for proposals closing without a single bid.

But the county is hopeful that with the issuing of a new request for development proposals, someone will finally bite and breathe new life into the property.

“We’re excited. It’s a beautiful piece of property. We know it was great as a park and we’re interested in who might be interested in making it the next best thing for Annapolis County,” said Rob Frost, the county’s chief administrative officer.

He said that the council is open to all proposals.

“Like everywhere in Nova Scotia, housing is a critical issue and something we’d like to see more of, but if there’s something that can create additional jobs, that can spur on additional housing, those would be great too,” he said. 

“So we’ll have to evaluate what’s the best thing for the county in general.”

Frost said the county is open to segmenting the property as well, which he thinks would make it more enticing to developers.

“I know we were all devastated when we found out the park was going to close the first time, but it’s time to move on and hopefully make sure it matches its former glory,” said Enslow, the deputy warden.

“It’s still quite special to everyone in Annapolis County because it was the hidden gem, so hopefully we can reignite that again and make this the hidden gem once more.”

MORE TOP STORIES

Add some “good” to your morning and evening.

Get the latest top stories from across Nova Scotia in your inbox every weekday.

---

---