Home to roughly 3 million people, Arkansas is another deep south state with all the negative issues traditionally associated with the deep south as it pertains to amusement and theme parks. Hurting it further is its own image to outsiders and investors. Wikipedia notes this was "characterized by early explorers as a savage wilderness full of outlaws and thieves." Perusal of Billboard's June 30th, 1917 issue gives us the name of 5 historical parks for the state operating then. That is but a tiny fraction of Pennsylvania or Ohio's take in the same issue. Of those 5, none seem to have operated past the 1920s.
Arkansas' first new full scale park in the post war era was quite an interesting one; Dogpatch USA, themed to a single IP (the Lil' Abner cartoon series). The park actually hung on for roughly 25 years before succumbing to debt load and poor investment decisions. Today, only one major park operates in Arkansas: CNL Management Group owned Magic Springs & Crystal Falls, located in the resort town of Hot Springs. Often rumored to be paring down to a water park only facility, Magic Springs is another victim of poor management/ownership as it is operated by a hedge fund seeking to create liquidity yesterday, not profits next year. Half of Six Flags St. Louis' original dual mine trains, a Maurer-Sohne X-Coaster, and the former wood coaster from Circus World/Boardwalk and Baseball all operate at the park.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE, SOCIALLY SOCIABLE?
The state has 4 parks of interest located on public lands and/or operating as trusts. Queen Wilhelmina State Park features a narrow gauge miniature diesel train for rides and mini golf. Funland Amusement Park, the state's longest operating amusement facility, runs on the grounds of Burns Park in North Little Rock. The Park at West End over in Fort Smith offers an Eli Wheel and carousel (non-historic). Finally, that brings us to the Little Rock Zoo, which happens to have a very unique piece of amusement park history. Constructed nearly 100 years ago by Herschell-Spillman, the Over-The-Dips Carousel is the only ride of its type in permanent operation anywhere on earth. Rather than using traditional mechanisms for jumpers, the ride uses an ondulating floor with the horses and flooring being mounted to a Caterpillar chassis. The ride was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991, and fully refurbished in 2007.
LIKE A THEME PARK WITHOUT THE RIDES
Mountain Village 1890 provides insight into the history of the Ozark region, the Baldknobbers, and all that nonsense which frankly I know little to nothing about, just like all my Yankee brethern. The internet tells me Baldknobbers sided with the North, and if there's anything I learned from Silver Dollar City, it is that they are the bad guys so...this I'm sure is interesting. No rides, just lots of buildings and period costumes.
THE MAN IN BLACK
The Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame seems like a strange choice: a small free museum dedicated to musicians from the state doesn't seem that interesting. But alas: How about a Johnny Cash Animatronic that sings 6 of his best songs? Yes. This is a real thing.
SCARING HIGHLY CONSERVATIVE BAPTIST FOLK SINCE I DUNNO WHEN
This isn't the midwest, and as such, the number of giant haunts isn't really comparable. The Carpenter's Mortuary has the slickest website and claims to be in an actual former mortuary. The Old Haunted Warehouse promotes total darkness with only the aid of a glowstick. As someone who's been in total darkness, you'd really be surprised how well a glowstick can illuminate. They're rather underrated!
Canada! Our glorious neighbor to the north has slightly more area under their flag and 1/10th the people. With just over 4 million residents, the province of Alberta is definitive "Western Canada" - culturally they're nothing like the people of the massive Toronto/Hamilton metroplex and share affinities for hunting, oil drilling, and pickup trucks much more alike the residents of somewhere like Utah or Texas.
DINOSAURS ALIVE~! (EXCEPT NOT REAL)
Before Cedar Fair bought themselves a pile of robot dinos, Alberta's Jurassic Forest opened. A modern version of the roadside dinosaur parks that littered the Upper Midwest in the 50s, Jurassic Forest provides trails through a wooded area where one encounters, you know, dinosaurs. There's mini golf too, but the idea of moving lifesize dinosaur robots into a more "realistic" environment is the true pull here. Look, did you know that gymnosperms didn't become the most common tree type until the late Cretaceous? Nah, don't even play like you did.
YABBA DABBA DON'T BUY THAT LICENSE
Back in the 1970s, Calgary became the epicenter of an oil boom in Western Canada. Between 1966 and 1986, the population nearly doubled to 630,000. This burst of activity, money, and people led to a number of developments being planned and constructed. One of these that came to fruition was Flintstones Fun Park, changed to Calaway Park prior to its 1982 opening, in the suburb of Springbank. Projected to obtain half a million people in attendance within a couple years of opening, the park themed to the famous cartoon family was just like virtually every theme park development of the post war era and instead turned into a commercial disaster for the first owners.
Today, many of the original buildings still show facades and even names from the Flintstones, even if the license was dropped following receivership and sale in 1986. Aside from the vintage Arrow Corkscrew, there's a few other notable attractions. Whitewater West, the company responsible for almost all of Disney's water slides and attractions, and their subsidiary Hopkins Rides constructed a log flume for the park in 2012 that's fairly substantial. There's also a pair of rare flat rides: a Chance Chaos (most were removed from action after an accident at Michigan's Adventure) and an Intamin Mini Enterprise (like a tiny version of the Waagner Biro wheels at Hershey and the Great America parks).
SEE, EXPERIENCE AND RIDE HISTORY
Calgary's best overall "themed" experience is probably the Calgary Zoo, which itself has a prehistoric dinosaur walkthrough. But for something more human in nature, there's the Heritage Park. A living museum complex, it intends to show various periods in the history of the area through exhibits, costumed characters, a standard gauge train (!) and museum pieces. Of particular interest to ride nerds is the Conklin Lakeview Amusement Park. It might be possible that the name "Conklin" is familiar: Conklin Rides became the biggest carnival midway in North America around that time with events like the Calgary Stampede, Canadian National Exhibition, Big E, and Miami-Dade Fair before becoming absorbed into what is known today as North American Midway Entertainment (N.A.M.E.) along with several other operators.
There's a Herschell-Spillman Carousel and an Eli Wheel here, but the real pulls should be the 1921 Mangels portable Whip ride, the 1920 one-off "Dangler" swing ride, and the 1928 Spillman Caterpillar (complete with hemp canopy that covers riders mid cycle!). Those three rides are the only operating examples of their sort anywhere on Earth. This is real living amusement/theme park history: when they're gone, there's gonna be nothing left but pictures and choppy video to go by.
WE DONT NEED NO STINKIN' MASTER PLANS
It was in 1981 that the first phase of the West Edmonton Mall opened to the public, and in the subsequent 35 years, there have been many changes. For visitors acquainted with the theme park industry, the most obvious attraction is the giant and infamous Schwarzkopf triple looping roller coaster, the Mindbender, which sits at the far end of the mall under a slanted roof. Unlike most giant malls you'll find in Asia's more developed regions, West Edmonton Mall looks and feels free-form, as though guess work for its sprawling spaces was a primary driver. There's an enormous indoor water park, and several other interesting rides and attractions in Galaxyland. But look closer, and you'll find remnants of a strange past. Take, for example, the model of the Santa Maria. Yes, one of Columbus' ships has been recreated here and placed in a lagoon. But did you know there was a ride around this at one point?
Yes, Disney weren't the only folks with a sub fleet. As is too often the case also with any theme park outside of Disney, there's precious little footage and photos to look at about how it appeared when operational. Here's some video from a souvenir video the mall produced:
Today, you can still find Canada's sole dark ride outside Ontario here with Quirks in the Works, a haunted house, multiple mini golf courses, Sea Life Caverns aquarium, casino gaming, and more. The Mindbender is still here too, but just know that it closes multiple times a day for inspection. And yes, it killed three people. That really did happen.
DID YOU KNOW?
Alberta has a permanent skyride over at the Stampede fairgrounds. It is possible you've never heard of Stampede, so to summarize: it is a Very Big Deal. If you know what the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo or San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo are like, it is like that but with even more rodeo stuff. If you don't know, then it is rodeo replacing all the agricultural stuff at most giant state fairs, plus more fair stuff, plus more rodeo. Calgary is known globally for Stampede, being the home of the 1988 Winter Olympics, and the home of the NHL Flames and Bret Hart in exactly that order.
SPOOKY STUFFZ
Screamfest is the biggest thing in the province for the Halloween fans, and takes place each October over in the Stampede grounds. Haunted Calgary is a more homemade sort of thing, put together by volunteers each year to benefit the Calgary Food Bank and Oops-a-Dazy Animal Rescue. Those crazy Canadians, doing things for their fellow man! Poor Fort McMurray pretty much burned to the ground this year, but it seems some people still have something, and they're looking to continue the Halloween weekend tradition of Chateau Boo at the Boys and Girls Club. Seriously, their city burned down, people. Feel free to give a little money if you've got it to something like this fund managed by the local Rotary. Finally, the Paramount Theater in Edmonton gets turned into Deadmonton each year, and apparently they go all out in trying to keep the theme down of a haunted movie theater.
By going alphabetical, that forces this series to go to some of the most difficult places in North America to chart out general weirdness and mystery right from the start. Alaska, America's 49th state, is the largest, the most sparsely populated, and home to the most inclimate weather of any of the Nation's wide reaching claims. Vast, often daunting wilderness is interspersed with few large population centers. And yet, even here, one might find some excitement. IN CASE THE CRUISE SHIP RAILROADS WERE TOO MUCH MONEY:
The Alaska Central Railroad, also known as Alaska Live Steamers, is the classic example of dudes who love trains a whole lot and want to share that love with you. Since these guys often construct vast themed miniature zones around their trains and since no one hates a train ride, how could this not be included? This can be found in Wasilia, known to us in the lower 48 as the home base for Sarah Palin.
BECAUSE HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS IS A REALLY LONG DRIVE:
Out in the hinterlands, it is often cheaper to employ local younginz an put masks on them than buy rides, ship them north, and get a bunch of spare parts to replace as they break down. As such, throughout places that seemingly shouldn't have anything, one can almost always find haunted houses. Fairbanks Asylum is the furthest outbound of these, located in the state's northern most urban landscape. News reports suggest the fire marshall almost kept it from opening last year, but open it did to throngs of hundreds. It isn't a big metro area, OK? Closer to actual populations of people, Gateways to Darkness, located in Wasilia, is probably the largest and most professional haunt option the state has. Anchorage is also home to Fright Night in the Northway Mall.
If professional haunts sound lame, then look for the Alaska Pacific University Haunted House, held only on the last weekend of October on the campus in Gould ("Ghould") Hall. It is free for residents with a request for canned food donations and things of that nature. If you happen to be in Anchorage at that time, why not drop in? Worst case scenario is that you give to a good cause.
MECHANICAL RIDES! REALLY!
With no permanent amusement parks to speak of in Alaska, the only option for going on rides powered by a motor (outside of scenic trains and boats) is to go to one of the fairs bouncing around. All the fairs in Alaska are basically serviced by one of two companies: Golden Wheel Amusements and A-1 Midway. A-1 Midway is also your sole provider of mechanical rides in the Yukon and Northwestern Territories of Canada, making either of these companies' attractions among the most rarely seen rides by Anglospeakers in North America. Both have fairly similar lineups consisting of common single trailer attractions like the Chance Zipper and Eli Wheel.
There are some rarities, though. A-1's include a rare Chance Toboggan roller coaster and even more rare portable Chance Slingshot drop tower (possibly the only one!). The Toboggan coaster is the largest roller coaster that operates north of the 54° parallel in North America, and it is a pretty strange beast if you’ve never seen one prior. The ride vehicle is entirely enclosed and travels to the top of the ride via a vertical tubular lift before spiralling down around the outside. The original appeared at Dogpatch USA way back in 1968, and this particular model is one of two still traveling in the United States. EDIT: @Canobiefan offers a correction on the prior locations of Chance Slingshots: "The tower at Frontier City, was actually the chance product and so was the now removed one from Martin's Fantasy Island. Family Kingdom and Adventuredome have portable models of the Chance crap too and OCMD (Ocean City, Maryland; and yes, its gone -AC) had one in 07 when I was there but don't remember seeing it this summer."
Golden Wheel may not own an adult coaster, but they do have a pair of kiddie ones (Wacky Worm and Orient Express advertised on their site) along with a fairly rare Wisdom Rave. The Rave is a resuscitation of the Rotor rides popularized in Germany and imported to the US by Chance in the 50s. The Alaska State Fair, with rides provided by A-1, is the largest event, and is held at the end of August each year for two weeks. Even rarer than the rides from the carnival company though are rides aboard the Allan Herschell carousel located at Haines, AK’s fairgrounds. As fairgrounds owned rides often go, it operates only during the dates of the fair.
FRONTIER FUN OR SOMETHING APPROXIMATING IT
Pioneer Park in Fairbanks is indicative of a scenario that plays itself out many times when we get far away from big population bases: local government recognizes need for people to enjoy themselves, helps subsidize it to keep people with families from leaving. There’s a Spillman carousel along with train and boat rides, mini golf, and several museums located on the grounds.
WATER SLIDES: THE PERFECT ACTIVITY WHEN IT IS -30F
H20asis is the state's lone indoor water park, and it isn't a big surprise that there are only a couple slides and small lazy river/pools. There is a 505 foot Master Blaster slide, making H20asis the home of Alaska's lone permanent "coaster". There are aquatics centers in Fairbanks and Juneau, but they're pretty far from being any kind of destination.
FREE TIME AND SCRAP METAL
Finally, in the "Does it even operate?" File, America's one and only human powered ferris wheel can be found in Butte, AK. If you've never seen video of one before, go scout around Youtube and you'll find stuff like this:
Well, kinda. It doesn't look anything like that. There's no website, no address anywhere, but with the magic of Google Maps, I can tell you it’s at the intersection of Old Glenn Hwy and E Northbridge Rd heading north out of Butte and into Palmer. Check it out for yourself on street view.
For the first entry in the series, we go alphabetical and start with the Heart of Dixie. Like much of the American South, Alabama doesn't have that great a history of theme and amusement parks. The trolley systems that birthed the American amusement park in the north simply didn't exist down in the South due to a wide array of reasons, many of which were sociological. There's little in the way of footage or archival pictures on the internet from the parks which we know existed. Mostly black and white images of Alabama State Fair's Kiddieland (a permanent carnival on the fairgrounds) are all that is available to us today. Within the state, there may indeed be as many amusement centers open now as any other time in history.
LIFE AFFIRMATION VIA TOILET SCOOTER
In the "Bizarre Park" category, DeSoto Caverns Family Fun Park probably ranks right up there. There's a number of self powered rides as well as more classic rides like the Tubs O Fun and Bumper Cars. Want to drive a scooter made from a bathtub? How about one from a toilet? You don't need to take my word for it. Not with the internet around.
Seriously; this is what happens when people don’t allow a lack of resources to keep them from trying to do something interesting. The world needs more, not less, of this.
THE CONEY ISLAND OF, UHH, ALABAMA
Gulf Shores Parkway has some notoriety among coaster nerds thanks to the off-the-beaten-path Waterville USA wood coaster. An early product of Custom Coasters Inc., it’s an out and back ride with the old school single “buzz bar” restraints. There’s some other fairly generic amusements in the area and a small zoo. Not far from Gulf Shores is the resort town of Orange Beach, home to a 112 ft tall Technical Park Ferris Wheel.
A WORLD'S FIRST THAT MATTERED? HERE?
In 1970, Point Mallard Park in Decatur, Alabama opened an attraction that is now a staple of most large aquatics facilities and water parks. It was, in fact, the key inspiration behind Sea World founder George Millay's decision to birth the water park industry as we know it and construct Wet N'Wild. Of course, I'm talking about the wave pool.
Not to get ahead of ourselves here, but there is another claimant to this throne that we'll note in a future installment, but this is the one Millay saw. Today there's a small water park on site along with the wave pool. It is geared for residents, but still open for anyone to visit.
ROLL TIDES THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT
It would be impossible for me to do this sort of thing for Alabama and not note scare zones/mazes, as there are actually quite a few and some have ingenious titles. I mean, seriously: Haunted Chicken House.
Don’t even pretend that it doesn’t appeal to you on some level. Sloss Fright Furnace also sounds kinda rad, though it should be noted that I’m a sucker for repurposed industrial anything.
However, by far the most interesting to me is The Terrortorium of Oxford, Alabama. Why this one in particular? Well, for starters, there’s an actual ride - and what a ride! The Haunted Castle, a Bill Tracy dark ride of 60s vintage from Miracle Strip Amusement Park in Panama City, FL was in danger after the park closed and was sold to developers. This place purchased it and operates it during the busy Halloween season along with several scare mazes.
WHEN PRIVATE VENTURES FAIL, THE COMMUNITY CAN SUCCEED?
Organizations like the Lions and Shriners aren’t usually associated with amusement rides or parks, but on occasion, they play an integral role in providing amusements to the community. Take, for example, the Athens Shriners Kiddie Carnival. For one week a year, their small collection of mostly used rides gets fired up for the youngsters. Prices are cheap - sure, no Pirates of the Caribbean here, but it provides a sort of service to the community when start up costs for something more grandiose put it out of reach. The Sertomans also ran a similar park in Huntsville, but closed it down and sold the rides to the still operating Southern Adventures.
IF THE COMMUNITY FAILS TOO, WELL, HOPEFULLY GOVERNMENT STEPS IN
Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park is home to a number of attractions like a grist mill and some historical blast furnaces, but there's also a miniature railway - looks like a Chance built CP Huntington to me.
Muscle Shoals is a great name for a city, and the metro area is home to Spring Park. There’s a few carnival rides, a Chance CP Huntington train providing rides, and a dancing fountain show at night.
Huntsville Historic Depot doesn't offer any mechanical rides, but does offer an animatronic show about its history.
Cullman County Fairgrounds is the only one with anything notable that is operational only for the fair, and it is mini golf.
