Thrills gone by: A look back at the whimsical and

Many of Atlantic Canada's amusement parks - a huge draw in the 80s and 90s - have slowly shuttered, including NL's Trinity Loop, PEI's Captain Barts and Rainbow Valley, and NB's Crystal Palace

Carnival-goers travelled from near and far to the Bonavista Peninsula to experience the thrill of Trinity Loop amusement park’s headliner: a miniature replica of a real working train that clattered around a nostalgic former historic train loop dating to the early 20th century. “It was a sprawling park, with a Ferris wheel overlooking a pond full of paddle boats, a miniature golf course, a petting farm, cabins, playgrounds, a concert stage, a museum experience and a railcar restaurant in an actual, full-sized retired railway carriage,” recalls Yvonne Sullivan, from Torbay, N.L.

“I took my daughter there in the late 1990s, when she was four. They had a llama at the farm and a sign above that read, ‘Keep Clear.’ But my little daughter couldn’t read, so she went near the pen.

The llama made a snap at her, so my mother jokingly shook her fist, saying, ‘Don’t you touch my granddaughter.’ Then the llama turned around and spat on my mother.” There are many unforgettable memories of the beloved old amusement park, rooted in joy, excitement, and maybe a little chaos, as Sullivan shares.

“It was nothing exotic; people came to see the main attraction: the train,” she notes. For some, it was a taste of what it was like to ride a train, and for others, it was a chance to relive their cherished childhood memories on the “Newfie Bullet” that operated from 1989 to 1969 from St. John’s to Port aux Basques. Graveyard of forgotten rides and broken train tracks It’s a far cry from what the park looks like today.

It’s been closed since 2004, and recent attempts to find a buyer for the property have been unsuccessful. “In 1992, I was there as a child when (Trinity Loop amusement park) was in full swing. I returned in 2020 as an adult, and I felt sadness.

I closed my eyes while I was there, and I could hear laughter and the train, and it was like I was in a movie. My eyes filled with tears,” recalls Pamela Thomas, a resident of Springdale, N.L. Now it’s a graveyard of toppled, skeletal rides, heavily graffitied cabins, and rusted, broken train tracks — the result of extreme weather and vandalism.

“There wasn’t one major event that wiped it out. You know, the visitors started to dwindle along with its maintenance. Like, first the cabins began to fall into disrepair, then the tracks were not maintained and became rusty and rose from the ground,” explains Sullivan.

The park now lures a different type of tourist, where people get their picture taken on one of the decaying railcar seats because, she says, “It looks almost like a scene from the movie A Clockwork Orange; that kind of, you know, bizarre thing where you have a horror movie.” Photographing forgotten places Grant Farhall is interested in photographing ghost towns and structures once bustling with human life that now sit eerily still. The Calgary resident has crisscrossed the country and beyond, capturing these quiet monuments as they are reclaimed by nature.

“I would say that for a lot of us that have this strange little hobby, amusement parks are on the bucket list of things to find and they’re very rare because most of them are not reachable or can be dangerous,” Farhall explains. “So, when I heard of Trinity Loop, that it was reachable, not fenced off, and relatively safe, it seemed like a good opportunity to photograph one. It’s technically the second amusement park on the East Coast that I’ve explored.

There was one in P.E.I. that I did a few years ago called Captain Barts Adventure Park,” he says, adding that Captain Barts was dismantled in 2024, years after the park closed. Related Locomotive at Trinity Loop finds home in Grand Falls-Windsor Heritage Centre Not so amusing after all: Trinity Loop request for proposals to redevelop abandoned amusement park property attracted limited interest, ATIPPA suggests This Newfoundland rail park has fallen into ruin, but one woman thinks she can resurrect it Trinity Loop amusement park site still without a buyer Space shuttle near Cavendish, P.E.I., taken apart Moncton's loss could be Cavendish's gain; Crystal Palace closing Farhall spent over an hour wandering around the abandoned Trinity Loop taking photos.

“There are a few old train cars that are heavily graffitied, which can be both beautiful but kind of destructive. I’m not a fan of people destroying these things, though I will admit that there can be an artistic quality, but these are heavily graffitied and vandalized,” he says. He discovered a series of buildings that he believes were once old cabins, now “roughened up,” he says, including parts of the train track, the old mini-golf course, and parts of the Ferris wheel down on the ground.

“It’s one of the things that’s interesting is how quickly nature kind of takes these things back... It’s kind of sad to see this, you know, it was once such a joyous place which had all these screams with kids, and it was full of families and now it’s a photographer’s playground,” he adds. Why did these parks fall out of favour?

Sullivan remembers that people were amazed by the park when it opened in June 1987, with its train, built and developed by local entrepreneur Francis Kelly, who purchased the historic 1911 train loop site designed by engineer J.P. Powell to help trains navigate steep hills. “The man who created the park put a lot of time and effort into it, but it couldn’t operate over our long winters, and it was a lot to keep it up and running... For a lot of people, it is well missed, because the train represents a big part of our heritage,” she explains.

Amusement parks are a summer staple for many families, but in the 1980s and 90s, they offered an isolated thrill because there were no social media or additional travel options to compare them to or diminish their worth. “I think that’s part of it is because today we’re spoilt with so many things going on that it’s almost like hard to choose, so you don’t appreciate what you have,” says Ryan Pineau, who fondly remembers travelling from Bloomfield to Cavendish with his family. “In my early teen years, probably 11 to 14 range, I would visit Captain Bart’s just outside of Cavendish, which is now demolished.

It had a science centre inside this space shuttle where you could do lots of experiments,” he recalls. “There was a planetarium in a geodesic dome, and an adventure tour through the woods where you had to look for clues in a big sand pit to find dinosaur bones. There was like an old Jeep hidden in the woods, and various experiences...

It was a stage in my life where I had a little freedom to venture on my own with my best friend at the time.” Pineau would spend the day with his friend imaginatively playing on the attractions or pretending to be Indiana Jones on the archaeologist experience. “We thought, how cool to be able to go and do all this stuff by ourselves.

And then right up by the front of the road, there were water balloon launchers, like two stations with a big slingshot to launch at the other structure, where your buddy would be doing the same.” Over time, like Trinity Loop, Captain Bart’s Adventure Park slowly went into demise. “These things (amusement parks) came on at a time when, you know, the world started to have many regulations around developing an attraction.

You couldn’t just replace a part you’d built yourself when it broke. It had to be all specially tested,” explains Pineau. Captain Bart’s closed in 2008.

Its iconic space shuttle and some other structures lingered on until 2024, when they were demolished due to vandalism and safety concerns. String of closures across Atlantic Canada Another popular attraction on P.E.I. worth mentioning was Rainbow Valley in Cavendish, a 12-hectare theme park that ran for 36 years. It was a cherished summer staple for Islanders and tourists, with classic features including Storybook Land, water slides, swan boats, a Witch’s Cave, and a black-and-white UFO gift shop.

Rainbow Valley ended in 2005, when the owner, Earl Davison, retired. He cited rising insurance costs, taxes, and administrative challenges as reasons for selling to Parks Canada. Across the East Coast, 1980s- and 90s-era amusement parks were retiring due to similar circumstances.

Jo-Ann Downey remembers fondly Crystal Place, where she used to take her six kids before it closed its doors in 2014 to make way for Bass Pro Shops. “The last trip we made was a few months before they closed. I love the way the pool was set up with the fake rocks and cliffs.

Great for photos. I would get the V.I.P. package for the kids to have milk and cookies delivered at night. It was a blast for the kids, and the staff were amazing,” she recalls.

Like the timeless observation that all good things must come to an end, these attractions continue to live on in the myriad hearts and minds of all those who visited them in their prime, when attendance was at its peak and they were filled with wonder and excitement.