Canobie Lake Park Celebrates a hundred and twentieth Birthday

So far as Chris Nicoli is anxious, Canobie Lake Park’s party is extra like a shared pageant expertise that’s occurring all summer time lengthy for the 1000’s of New Hampshire residents and guests who flock to the park. This yr can also be particular as a result of park situations have returned to a prepandemic degree, the place every day sees capability crowds, glad households and summer time guests who’re able to embrace every thing that Canobie Lake Park has to supply.

“The general consistency and integration into individuals’s lives and historical past are fairly vital. We’re very proud,” says Nicoli, who serves because the park’s model manger. “We began in1902, and we’re utilizing the identical enterprise mannequin. We give individuals an escape from actuality and a break from the surface world,” he provides.

As of press time in late June, Nicoli says park officers have been nonetheless finalizing their a hundred and twentieth birthday plans. When the park marked 100 years, Nicoli says they served up a 60-foot-long birthday cake and gave a chunk to everybody within the park that day. All through the summer time, he mentioned the park’s Enjoyable Squad will host impromptu events and carry out limbo dances. There are park trivia video games and loads of stay leisure as effectively.

The 65-acre amusement park, positioned on Salem’s Coverage Highway, options the gleeful sounds of individuals screaming with delight as they descend on the wood Yankee Cannonball curler coaster, which first got here to the park from Connecticut in 1936.

Those self same screams and laughter could be heard in each nook of the park, from the water rides and swimming pools on Castaway Island to the Boston Tea Social gathering water experience and the Turkish Twist, and effectively into the night when fireworks mild up the skies over the lake each Friday from now till Labor Day weekend.

Households are additionally all over the place, introducing their kids to the identical kiddie rides they loved when their dad and mom launched them to the park. The vintage automobiles, Canobie Categorical prepare, bumper automobiles and the vintage carousel delight younger and previous alike. Those that search a serene and tranquil break from the park’s vitality can take a 30-minute cruise on Canobie Lake aboard the Blue Heron.

The top result’s an escape from actuality the place adults out of the blue really feel like youngsters once more, operating from experience to experience, eating on cotton sweet, fried dough and ice cream with out a care on the earth. All through the park’s historical past, Nicoli says every possession group has embraced the aim to offer guests a theme park expertise nearer to house.

Stroll Down Reminiscence Lane

One of many new issues the park has rolled out for its a hundred and twentieth anniversary is the Heritage Path — a self-guided tour the place guests can find historic markers and use their telephones to scan QR codes to be taught in regards to the park’s historical past.

A few of the issues they may encounter embrace the unique trolley cease the place guests would enter the park by the big stone gate close to the principle entrance, the location of the unique Canobie Lake Resort and Lover’s Stroll that led to the lakeside lodge the place {couples} would spend romantic weekends, and the Dancehall Theatre.

The lodge operated from 1902 to 1910 earlier than it was misplaced in a hearth. Nicoli says the park created a haunted home primarily based on photographs and postcards of the unique lodge for Screeemfest, the Halloween occasion they maintain from September by Halloween.

Nicoli explains the Dancehall Theatre hosted many spectacular bands and recording artists, from Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington to Aerosmith. Even Sonny and Cher appeared quickly after their first large hit, “I Received You Babe,” was launched in 1965. Park guests may also uncover issues like the unique Boat Home, which dates again to 1902 and supplied guests loads of canoeing and boating on the lake.

The Timber Path is one other self-guided stroll the place guests can discover the unique botanical backyard and see Japanese pink pine and Kwanzan cherry timber alongside the path. The rivers purple European beech, famous for its protecting cover, was planted in 2002 for the park’s centennial milestone. The Village Rock additionally pays homage to Canobie Lake Park’s authentic homeowners.

Nicoli says park officers additionally undertook an in depth rehab undertaking for the vintage carousel, which was constructed within the late 1800s and has known as Canobie Lake Park house for many years. “It’s each our oldest attraction and latest attraction at this level,” he says.

To totally recognize Canobie Lake Park’s historical past and longevity, you will need to perceive the way it all started.

“We began as a trolley park,” Nicoli explains, which was the norm for a lot of of New England’s oldest amusement parks.

Earlier than cars got here on the scene, a majority of New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts residents relied on trolley automobiles to get to and from their jobs on the leather-based tanneries and different companies. In 1902, the primary trolley automotive introduced guests from the Larger Lowell area and the cities of Lawrence, Haverhill and Nashua. Eight weeks later, the Hudson, Pelham & Salem Railways opened Canobie Lake Park to offer individuals a vacation spot and a cause to experience the trolleys on weekends.

Nicoli says that through the work week, individuals would pay a nickel to experience trolleys to and from work, however only a few rode them on weekends. The park featured a botanical backyard together with canoeing, sporting occasions, the Circle Swing, picnics and the penny arcade.

It was widespread for individuals to decorate up of their most interesting garments after they headed to Canobie Lake Park. Salem later grew to become the hub for the Massachusetts Northeast Avenue Railway Firm, however the creation of the auto would convey nice adjustments. Canobie Lake Park really went out of enterprise in 1929, however happily, a brand new proprietor who made a fortune by inventing an “electrical paving machine” bought the park and reopened it.

The Yankee Cannonball, previously the Greyhound Curler Coaster from Lakewood Park in Waterbury, Connecticut, got here to Canobie Lake Park in 1936 and the Dancehall Theater adopted. The park reached one other important crossroads in 1957 when it sustained a hearth, a hurricane and an general decline in enterprise.

Members of the Berni, Captell and Ulaky households got here to the rescue and 4 generations later, members of these households nonetheless personal the park, in accordance with Nicoli.

Eye on the long run

Nicoli says Canobie Lake Park’s success is fueled by the emotional pull of nostalgia and the homeowners’ dedication to introduce new rides, points of interest, expertise and heightened service. As an alternative of resisting change, Nicoli says they embrace it as a part of their mantra.

“We’ve got been pivoting for greater than 100 years,” he says.

Nicoli has labored at Canobie Lake Park for 21 years, and he notes how the park continues to be the quintessential eighth-grade subject journey vacation spot for scores of New Hampshire and Massachusetts schoolkids as evidenced by the rows of faculty buses that always fill the parking zone.

The park employs as many as 2,000 seasonal, part-time group members and 100 full-time workers who work there year-round. An enormous a part of the park’s successful system is rehabbing its buildings and its emphasis on cleanliness.

Nicoli says all group members, together with the homeowners, will decide up any trash they see straight away to take care of one of many cleanest amusement parks within the nation.

“We spend loads of effort sustaining the property,” Nicoli says. “We take pleasure in our cleanliness, whether or not it’s our restrooms or the midways.”

Many guests could not give the park’s cleanliness a second thought, however Nicoli says, “If we have been soiled, everybody would discover.”

At a time when individuals have extra house leisure choices than ever earlier than, Nicoli says they nonetheless get pleasure from coming to Canobie Lake Park as a result of what they expertise right here they can’t expertise anyplace else.

“You’ll be able to’t go hovering by the air over the lake at sundown whereas fireworks are launching within the air in case you are house sitting on the sofa and watching TV or taking part in video video games,” he says.

Even Canobie’s halfway video games provide rather more than simply stuffed animals. Guests can really win high-def TVs, Apple Watches and iPads.

Individuals who wish to spend the day cooling off on the Castaway Island water park that opened in 2019 encounter one thing that simply rivals a resort they’d discover in Florida or the Bahamas, Nicoli says.

Along with the water slides and swimming pools, the water park has 11 cabanas that may accommodate as much as eight individuals. Every cabana features a high-def TV, fridge, and a meals service attendant who will take their orders and convey their meals and drinks proper to their desk.

Whereas the homeowners are all the time seeking to the long run, Nicoli says they’re nonetheless dedicated to sustaining Canobie Lake Park’s authentic tradition and expertise. The park’s longevity is much more spectacular when one considers that different former mainstays, similar to Whalom Park, Paragon Park and the Salisbury Seaside amusement park, have all been misplaced to historical past.

Canobie Lake Park has additionally maintained its edge on this trade regardless of competitors from bigger parks like Six Flags New England in Springfield, Massachusetts. Canobie’s location proper on the border between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, which represents a digital stone’s throw from the Larger Boston market, has served it very effectively.

Guests can buy park tickets that embrace every thing from admission to all of the rides and the water park, which is an actual cut price for households who’re dealing with excessive fuel costs and inflation. Additionally they provide free parking and a shuttle service if guests should park farther away from the park. That’s not the case at many different amusement parks. Then, after all, there’s Canobie Lake itself, which serves as the right backdrop.

Within the close to future, Nicoli says guests will be capable of preorder meals and drinks on their telephones and decide them up at meals stations much like what different venues like Fenway Park, TD Financial institution Backyard and Gillette Stadium present.

No matter how a lot new expertise and fashionable conveniences could also be launched to the park, the roar of Canobie Lake Park’s Yankee Cannonball, the putt-putt tempo of its vintage automobiles, and the light up-and-down motion of its vintage carousel horses can be constants.