LONE ROCK, Sask. – When the auctioneer couldn’t get a $50 bid on an 85-year-old house, Bernice Parkyn bit.
“That was the inspiration,” she said while sitting in the renovated two storey house that she moved 35 kilometres to Lone Rock to become her business.
In fact, the Four Seasons Craft and Teahouse is the only business in the town of 100, located near the Saskatchewan-Alberta border.
Parkyn said she did a lot of crafts and needed a place to sell them. The house seemed suitable.
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She and her husband, Randy, spent the summer of 2001 having the house moved, and then pouring concrete for sidewalks, redoing the wiring and plumbing, sanding the hardwood floors and setting up a kitchen to create a main floor eating area to balance off the upstairs craft rooms.
Parkyn opened for business in November 2001 and last September had a grand opening. The white clapboard house has a big front porch and side veranda. Eating room doubles in the summer, but the outdoor tables had to be moved to the east side of the house from the west because of the sun’s heat.
The teahouse leaves her no time to do crafts, so she brings in items from 26 local people. There are stepping stones, paintings, wall decorations, knitted blankets and an entire room dedicated to Christmas items. Parkyn charges a 15 percent consignment fee, but admits the crafts don’t pay the bills the way the teahouse does. However, the crafts help draw groups of seniors from nearby Lloydminster, Neilburg and other towns within 50 km.
“It’s the meals the people come for, not tea or dessert.”
It’s a good thing that Parkyn’s food is popular because there is a lot of bumpy grid road to drive on to get to Lone Rock, which is about 20 km south of the Yellowhead highway and about 10 km east of Highway 17 that runs along the provincial border.
Parkyn, who works alone but is anticipating hiring staff this summer, makes most of the food herself. Lunch is usually homemade soup and biscuits and bread.
At supper, she offers two or three items, ranging from pork cutlets and mashed potatoes to the ubiquitous hamburger, all served with soup or salad and a dessert.
“We cooked big,” said Parkyn of growing up in a family of eight kids. In 1990, she and her husband moved to Saskatchewan for opportunities with the heavy oil upgrader being built in Lloydminster. They left British Columbia because they decided it had no more entrepreneurial spirit left.
In Saskatchewan, her husband found work in the oil industry, but also farms with the help of their two sons, both raising 4-H steers, and their daughter. They opened the teahouse with no government subsidies, using their own labour and income.
The business is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday to Sunday and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Monday is the only day I have off and then I have to do the banking and grocery shopping.”
Parkyn said Randy’s support is crucial.
“It’s long hours here. I couldn’t do it without my husband.”
