Our Story

The first time I played paintball was out east, in Nova Scotia. It was 1986 and I was serving in the military. Our group used pistols in just a big field. I wouldn’t play again until the fall of 1991. I was in college in Brampton at this time and had rounded up a group to play paintball in the Guelph area. I think it was called Ultimate Adventure. A good friend and I were talking about our experience one day and decided that we could make our own paintball park in Wasaga.

It didn’t take long for Dave Knight and me to rent 60 acres in Wasaga, across from the Arena. Some of you will remember it as the old Dinosaur Park. We rented it from a man who had bought the property as an investment and it was sitting vacant. The deal started at $1000 per month. We each borrowed $30 000 from our families and bought 50 Poisons, 30 RAM pump guns, 20 VM68s and 5 F1 Illustrators. Our paint supplier was PMI Paintballs. If we had 30 boxes of paint we were well stocked!

We had less than 2 months to get it ready for our Grand Opening on June 6^th, 1992. We worked many long days. Our friends and families all chipped in to turn the place into what I considered to be the best paintball park in Canada. Donna was helping out and although I had known her for many years, I started to think of her as more than just a good friend. I proposed to her in November of 1992 and we were married the following August. It was the best move that I have ever made.

Dave Knight also got married and moved out to Calgary with his new bride. Donna become not only my life partner but also my new business partner. We made a home for ourselves living above the business in a long skinny space that we had created. It had four little rooms and a bathroom with the only window. It was home for us for the next six years. Once the kids started coming along the space seemed even smaller!

We had developed eight different playing areas in the woods for paintball play, including one town made mostly from plywood. The park was a big hit for sure. Larry Brownridge was one of our first season customers! Christine Horner started coming with Larry and eventually replaced Donna as the main building girl while Amanda Kalbfleisch would become the ammo hut girl.

At this point, we were 99% Co2 and we were just starting to dabble in HPA with one type of rental marker that we had, called Automag. We went on to supply HPA to a big major paintball tournament at the Toronto Skydome for 2 years in a row. Then we offered hydro testing for HPA tanks.

The business was doing well in the spring, summer and fall but it was hard to put groceries on the table in the winter. I had worked on the mountain making snow and sometimes we thought we had to eat snow. We began thinking of how to get through the winter months with paintball. We didn’t have an indoor field and because we didn’t own the property, it didn’t make sense to build a permanent structure. We were also thinking of our future. We needed to own our land and not be crowded out by development. The land we were on was way out of our price range.

It wasn’t until December 2002 that we bought the land at 3600 Vigo Road. The property was actually my great grandfather’s that he had moved onto in 1930. The barn and much of the original house, both built by my great grandfather, is being used today.

In the spring of 2003 we began preparing the land for our new park. It was countless hours of field and site work. In the spring of 2004, the builder started the 25000 sq. ft. building that would house our indoor field and main building area. We had created 14 playing fields over 70 acres. Wasaga Beach Paintball Mega Park would be ready for its grand opening on October 24, 2004.

2018 brought a lot of changes with the new branding of Wasaga Adventure Park. Not only did we continue to provide Paintball, Airsoft and Laser but we added several new activities for people to try: Nerf, Archery Tag, Escape Rooms, and Axe throwing.

In June of 2022, we will celebrate our 30^th anniversary! We are proud of what we have created and have always prided ourselves on our superior playing experience as well as our customer service. Those were important to us in 1992 and continue to be now.

It has been great to build up this business, make a lot of great friends and help so many people to have adventures while they make some amazing memories.   If you have been to our park, you are a part of our history!