Efforts by community members to revitalize a key element of the St. Cyr trail system went up in smoke recently. “The St. Cyr ski chalet is destroyed,” confirmed Meadow Lake fire chief Joe Grela following an early morning blaze that claimed the decades-old building last Thursday (May 22). “We received a call from one of the residents who lives in the area. When we arrived on scene, the building had burned to the ground. There were some smouldering areas left, so we extinguished those. We responded with five firefighters, a pumper and a tanker. The fire is believed to have started early in the morning, and the cause is currently under investigation.”

According to Jan Vandermeer, a member of the St. Cyr Trails Club, the loss of the ski chalet is devastating considering a great deal of work and money recently went into fixing up the building as part of ongoing efforts to rejuvenate the club and to prepare for the 2026 Saskatchewan Winter Games. The St. Cyr trails are to be the site of the Games’ cross-country skiing, nordic and para-nordic ski events Feb. 18-21 of next year. The group has also been working on a number of grant proposals to refurbish the club, widen and level trails, purchase youth and adult skis and provide a series of youth and adult lessons in the coming snow season.

“A club member mentioned they were out there until about 9 p.m. Wednesday (May 21),” Vandermeer said. “The building was intact and a bunch of people were admiring it… In the morning, I received a call from a club member who is also a volunteer firefighter. He told me he’d just received a pager alert about something going on at St. Cyr.” Vandermeer arrived on the scene about 10:30 a.m. Thursday. “We’d just put a new roof on the building, so all that was left was a bunch of tin from that still lying around, along with the wood stove we used to heat the main part of the building and a barrel that was in the smaller part of the building,” Vandermeer said. A portion of the funding for the roof work was provided to the club by the RM of Meadow Lake. “The RM had just paid for a new roof,” stated RM administrator Richard Levesque. “We agreed to give them (club) a grant to replace the roof this spring for $6,500.” The building itself was built more than 50 years ago.

“The club has been in existence in various forms since the early 1970s,” Vandermeer said. “There was a pretty thriving and dynamic community around it, as the club would often host provincial biathlons and other such events. It has dwindled over the years, however, but there’s been a core group of us who have been working to revitalize it.” And, in spite of the upcoming Saskatchewan Winter Games, Vandermeer said there were already attempts to strengthen the club simply because of a general increase in interest. “In addition to the support from the RM, we put at least $8,000 toward buying materials (for the roof),” he added. The chalet was located just off Island Lake Road, not far from the parking area at St. Cyr. And, although it was in rough shape before the recent renovations began, Vandermeer said it was used quite frequently in the past year.

“We had a film night out there in October co-sponsored by the Meadow Lake and District Humane Society and Meadow Lake Pride, and we had four Friday night skis following which we’d return to the building to share apple cider, hot chocolate and snacks,” he said. “Once people became aware the building was heated again, we had people coming in to warm up around the wood stove. I also held three or four ski lessons out there, so more and more people were starting to become involved. We had plans to refurbish the building… This weekend I was going to buy some insulation, and do some drywalling and patching.”