Despite cool temperatures, campers determined to enjoy Victoria Day weekend

BIRDS HILL — When Steven Cong and his partner Teresa Calderon arrived at their campsite in Birds Hill Provincial Park on Saturday, their first order of business was to get a fire going.

The Winnipeg couple rented a site on Grackle Bay in the provincial campground for three days, hoping to spend the May long weekend sleeping in a tent and enjoying the solitude of life outside the city.

But as temperatures hovered around 3 C shortly after 10 a.m., they wondered whether it was worth unpacking their gear.

“Normally, I would tough it out, but I’m getting older now,” Cong, 41, said with a chuckle. “If it doesn’t rain, then we’ll stay, but if it starts raining, that’s miserable.”

Cong first arrived at the campsite around 6 p.m. on Friday. After a few hours sitting around the campfire and listening to bird songs, the cold became too much to bear and he went home to Winnipeg at 10 p.m.

He returned Saturday morning alongside Calderon, 44.

They were committed to making the most of the weekend, but a dusting of snow was falling as the couple arrived, and the forecast was projecting a 30 per cent chance of rain.

Cong said when he booked the weekend camping trip, reservations for Grackle Bay were nearly full — but after a week of poor weather marked by wind and low temperatures, only a handful of campers turned up.

Elsewhere in the campground, on Oriole Bay, couple Davis Smith, 24, and Ella Fontaine, 23, were faring slightly better.

The pair arrived at Birds Hill around 9 p.m. Friday, and spent the night sleeping in the back of their SUV alongside their Border Collie-mix, Weston. The vehicle, retrofitted with a bed and frequently used for back-country camping, offered additional shelter from the elements, Smith said.

“We woke up to a little bit of snow falling, so it was a little chilly this morning, but it’s already warmed up a bit,” he said.

“It’s still nice to be out here. It’s just a slow pace, you know what I mean? It’s peaceful.”

Smith, from Beausejour, extolled the virtues of the great outdoors as Fontaine, a Gimli native, fried up hash browns and English muffins on a camping stove. She bent down and cracked a raw egg onto a plate for Weston, so he could have some breakfast too.

They were awaiting the arrival of some friends who booked a neighbouring site.

“All I’m hoping for is some sun to come out,” Smith said.

The couple were likely to see their wish granted on Sunday, when Environment and Climate Change Canada projected less cloud cover and daytime temperatures of 11 C.

While temperatures were slightly lower than average for the May long weekend, they were consistent with those seen in the Birds Hill area during the same period in recent years, meteorologist Kyle McAulay said.

“It’s not that uncommon, especially when a cold front comes through, that we can see some snow in the early parts of the morning when it’s a little bit cooler,” he said.

Environment Canada data shows lows reached 2 C on the same day last May, and 1 C on May 17, 2025. Temperatures were similar over the long weekend in 2024, McAulay said.

The coldest temperature on record on May 16 was set in 1961, when the low reached about -7 C in the area. The record low for May 17, set in 1888, was close to -9 C, McAulay said.

“We’re still a bit of a ways away from breaking any records,” he said. “It’s cold, but it’s not like it’s … unprecedented.”

Based on the current forecast, temperatures in the Red River Valley were expected to remain low until Tuesday, but should reach somewhere around 20 C by next weekend, McAulay said.

“Hopefully, that trend continues,” McAulay said.

“The last few weeks, almost a month or so now, have been cooler than average, but as we keep going and get closer and closer to summer … we have higher chances of warming up.”

Back on Meadowlark Bay in the Birds Hill campground, Travis Klawuhn, 41, and his partner Adriana DiMaggio, 34, were looking ahead to the summer months.

Klawuhn was cooking eggs on a camping stove, while DiMaggio rolled their nine-month-old baby back and forth in a stroller.

Their other child, a three-year-old boy, was bundled beneath blankets in a plastic wagon — listening to a song by Saskatchewan country artist Colter Wall playing on a Bluetooth speaker.

The Winnipeg couple take their trailer out on annual trips for the May long weekend. It’s a good way to get it ready for the rest of the camping season, Klawuhn said.

“May long is just always a crap shoot. I brought shorts and my parka, ” Klawuhn said, laughing.

“I brought shorts and my parka.”

When they booked the camping weekend, Meadowlark Bay was in such high demand that they could not get a reservation next to Klawuhn’s sister and her family. But, when temperatures dipped and other campers cancelled their plans, they were able to snag sites side-by-side, he said.

“It kind of turned out well. Usually, May long is really busy,” Klawuhn said.

”We’re going to cook, go for a bike ride, play some bocce ball. I was wondering if there is water in the lake because I was determined to go swimming, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

While the man-made lake located just north of the campground had not yet been filled with water on Saturday, the paths surrounding it were occupied by a handful of cyclists, joggers and people walking their dogs.

At nearby Pineridge Hollow, the parking lot was full of cars and dozens of patrons popped in and out of the shops carrying coffee, baked treats and other goods.

The start of the long weekend may have been chilly and damp at the provincial park, but many people made the most of it.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca