I first noticed the outhouses missing a few weeks ago on one of the first hot weekends of this summer (the outhouses were there when the park opened for the 2014 season and I think they disappeared in early June). I happened to be about 32-weeks pregnant at the time and of course I had a big drink of water before leaving for the beach, and also brought water with me knowing that the beach would have “facilities” when I got there. But upon arriving, no place for relief 🙁 . The beach was busy that day, many people were in the same boat as me. I saw lots of people scooting off trail looking for a place of privacy. Some people may not have known the trail that well and picked poor places. Part way though our walk we hiked up to the usual “look-off rock,” this is slightly off trail, but anyone who uses the trail regularly knows that is a usual milestone/resting point for hikers, where we found an embarrassed someone performing number two who obviously thought that he had picked a clever spot. My family uses the beach and park multiple times per week throughout the spring-fall. We have dogs that we take for trail runs in the early morning/or late evening when there are fewer beach-goers, and we also use the beach in high summer to swim and relax. So my concern is not just that a Provincial Park which is so well used SHOULD have bathroom facilities (in my opinion, outhouses were the minimum to meet this need. I would actually think Crystal Crescent supports enough patrons to warrant flushing or composting toilets) but also the issue of sanitation. I mentioned that we have dogs and we ALWAYS pick up after them, but humans who find themselves in a precarious need for faculties don’t usually carry poop bags. —Pissed in Sambro
This article appears in Jul 10-16, 2014.
last time I was at crystal crescent was in spring, and noticed they were missing. I thought that was a regular winter thing.
man, you can’t have a public park that popular and not have some kind of toilet facilities.
I am going to throw in a plug for the pizza slices you can get at the store just before crystal crescent. delicious!!!! tons and tons of cheese.
pregnant and no turlet? i feel for you. haven’t been there in years didn’t they have showers too?
Very politely written bitch. Valid one, too 🙂
POOPING ON LOOK-OUT ROCK
“I mentioned that we have dogs and we ALWAYS pick up after them, but humans who find themselves in a precarious need for faculties (sic) don’t usually carry poop bags.” Pissed in Sambro
What faculties would be located on Look-Out Rock?
I’m going to guess the Faculty of Waste Management (or maybe Commerce).
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I believe this is still a Provincial park so I suppose the tourism department is taking their ‘Doers and Dreamers’ theme to new levels. If you need to ‘Do’ a certain human function you better be able to Dream’ up a 3-D outhouse – pronto. Insanity to spend oodles of $$$ promoting the province to get people to come to the edge of the continent, then expect them to bring their own crapper when visiting a Provincial park / beach. I suppose they expect locals to just wear Depends whenever they leave an urban area, not that we are awash with public washrooms even in towns here.
Rainbow Haven has great washroom facilities – large washrooms with flush toilets and showers. I’d definitely be going there from now on if I were you, OB.
I can’t do outhouses – it’s not that I find them gross, I just have some weird phobia of them, going all the way back to Brownie camp. So, I’ll usually hold it, but if people are crapping in the woods…. Blech.
As the MLA for Sambro, I have some digging around in regards to the missing outhouses.
The outhouses were not removed by Natural Resources, they were actually vandalized and burnt to the ground.
I have put a request in for replacements and the work started this past weekend
Thanks
Brendan Maguire
MLA Halifax Atlantic
I can imagine the only thing worse than the stench of stagnant piss and shit
has to be BURNT plastic-y piss and shit. ug.
how long does it take to set up a couple of privies? it’s been weeks.