Country Thunder: painted campers stand out in crowd

Craven’s campgrounds hold some interesting places to sleep for this year’s Country Thunder.

What campers are calling home for the weekend ranges from tents, to motor homes, to buses, and some like to go the extra mile by getting a little creative.

A group of about a dozen young men from Moosomin fall into this category.

They have a circle of campers, two of which are painted.

One they call “Shaggin’ Wagon” which has yellow, red, green and blue paint all over it, creating a tie-dye effect. The other is red, white and blue and says “Saturdays are for the Boys.”

“We like to stand out here in the Moosomin squad,” said camper Ty Woods, as his group was already cracking the drinks at 9 a.m.

Chevy Schwean said he finds the decked out campers attract people to come into their campsite so they meet new people.

“We just want to have a good time. We want people to come here, have a couple drinks,” he said. “They’re like ‘Hey, these guys are fun’ and they’re like ‘We’re coming here’ and they have a couple beers with us.”

Rylan Cole, a creator of “Shaggin’ Waggon,” said it’s been in the works for about a month.

“We knew we had some work to do so we gutted the thing and installed a mattress in it and from there we carried on with spray paint and she’s pretty colourful now,” he said.

“As long as it runs good, that’s all that matters,” Cole said.

Found some pretty unique campers @CCJsask.The creative minds behind them say they attract visitors to their site! #CountryThunder #Sask 🎶⛺️ pic.twitter.com/1sJYURwlfO

— Jayda Noyes (@jaynoyesSK) July 13, 2018

RCMP say it’s been ‘fairly quiet’

Halfway through the 2018 Country Thunder music festival, RCMP say things have been “fairly quiet.”

On Wednesday night, Mounties received no calls for service at all and made no arrests.
However, things turned around Thursday with 23 calls for service throughout the day.

Mounties said they arrested eight people, received four reports of assault, and handed out one impaired driving ticket right in the festival grounds.

On Friday, RCMP had a total of 34 calls for service — several of them liquor act related offences, three assaults and one domestic assault. There was also one call for theft of camping equipment and one robbery where cash was stolen.

Two prisoners were also held overnight.

During the same period, RCMP also conducted 333 traffic stops, resulting in 81 traffic safety related charges. Four vehicles were also impounded, 93 warnings were issued, two warrants were executed and four breath tests were administered for alcohol.