Then came Giggle Ridge

After almost five years of working almost exclusively for West Edmonton Mall, it was time to do a project we had been dreaming of and planning for over a dozen years. The opportunity to locate in Cultus Lake, British Columbia first appeared on December 15, 1999. We made a deal to purchase an ancient mini golf, there since the 1940s. The half-acre parcel of land is ideally located in a busy recreational area. The golf was outdated and underused but had immense potential. The possession date for the property was noon on March 15, 2000. By five o'clock, that same day, the old golf was demolished and hauled away. Then the real work began. Our extremely ambitious goal was to build Giggle Ridge Adventure Golf in only one hundred days. Thankfully, we had twenty members of our skilled and experienced team to help us which made things a little easier.

During construction, the team cut, fit and welded over fourteen miles of steel. We tied thousands of sheets of galvanized lath into place. Thousands of cubic yards of soil and gravel were moved, shaped and then tamped into place. We carefully poured and troweled more than four hundred cubic yards of concrete and seven thousand concrete blocks. Two hundred and thirty litres of paint were hand-brushed and blended. We welded fourteen hundred square nuts onto the fence pickets - just for decoration. Many hundreds of feet of electrical conduits and underground piping were buried. More than three thousand-six hundred square feet of carpet was cut, fit and glued into place. Landscape design was done by world-famous gardener, Brian Minter. There were fifteen thousand annuals planted, plus all of the perennials, shrubs and trees.

Despite the spring of 2000 being unusually cold and wet, Giggle Ridge Adventure Golf officially opened on July 13, 2000 - one hundred and twenty days after we started.

And on to the next!

West Edmonton Mall is a massive enterprise, with a diverse array of attractions. As work on Galaxyland progressed, the mall management asked us to do other attractions as well. One of these was the indoor mini-golf which was at the other end of the mall from the theme park - a mile distant. We dreamed up a new story and theme and Professor WEM’s Adventure Golf came to be. Working in this location was like working in a giant fish bowl as there was no temporary holding to hide us from the public. Passersby simply leaned on the glass railing and watched us create the magic in front of them. It was a very fun project that lasted many months before we moved on to the next adventure in the mall.

Jumping to lightspeed

Once we incorporated as the Imagination Corporation we could take on much larger projects. We needed to gather better tools and train new people with each more complex project. An unbelievable opportunity presented itself in 1995 to completely re-theme Galaxyland (formerly Fantasyland) at West Edmonton Mall in Alberta. Our mandate was challenging and started with a single project - adding a kid’s play area in the center of the five-acre indoor amusement park. The owners loved this first phase and we were awarded the ‘contract’ to redo the entire project but only one attraction at a time. We relocated to Edmonton with a small crew and three travel trailers. A few months later (before winter set in) we moved to a more permanent residence in Edmonton. There was never a master plan to guide us. The operations manager would talk with me about a particular area. I’d then go back to my temporary studio and work up some concept drawings which we would present to the owners and settle on a contract. Then we would begin work. We started early (6:00 am) and worked four hours behind locked gates and then another four hours while the park was open. We were considered to be part of the show. Just before we finished our current project I would go for another walk with the operations manager to pick out another attraction. I’d do more concept drawings and then present them to the owners for consideration. The cycle would repeat continually for almost five years as we worked our way through the theme park and eventually out into the mall to other attractions. We weren’t allowed to shut down an attraction for more than one day so we had to plan our time efficiently. It was a challenging and exciting time as I learned to transfer my skills and ideas to a young and talented crew. Our mandate was to build every piece as if it came from one mind and hand. All through this time our crew, our selection of tools and our ability to tackle ever more complex projects were continually expanding. At the peak of the job, our crew numbered twenty-one people. Although I still tried my utmost to be hands-on, the reality was that I was now management and the bulk of my time was spent enabling our crew, planning projects and dealing with clients. We had indeed jumped to light speed!