Flying on the Water: Celebrating the Long-awaited return of Lake McQueeney

Imagine losing your favorite pastime. Whatever it is, whether sports, dance, gaming, or crosswords –– it’s just gone, and you don’t know when, or if, you’ll get it back. If you can imagine this, you might have an idea of how life on Lake McQueeney has been for residents the past several years.

In 2023, the lake was drained to make necessary repairs to the dam, but those repairs resulted in a loss of community and lifestyle that no one was fully prepared for. When the water went down, friends were separated, and livelihoods changed. Everything changed, really. When your life is based around the water, and there is no water, what do you even do?

Josh Wright lives on Lake McQueeney and is a member of the Ski Bees organization helping put on ski shows at Lake Breeze Ski Lodge. For him, the draining of the lake was a personal tragedy.

“It was your favorite hobby pulled away from you,” Wright said. “Kind of like the carpet being pulled out from underneath you. You just never really know what you have until it’s gone. But part of it feels like we never left, honestly. It’s great to have this back because this is our community. There were some people we didn’t see for three years. They lived three miles away from us, on the other side of the lake, but that was a thirty-minute drive, and now it’s like a three-minute boat ride. People changed while the water was down. Kids grew up, people got new jobs and different ways of life, and some of us paused and took a different path, while others just waited it out.”

Wright said now that the water is back, it’s a bit of a foreign feeling –– surreal. Lake residents changed so much of their lives during the time the water was down that, when it came back, it was almost a shock to have their old lifestyle back.

“Being back on the water is kind of a foreign feeling,” Wright said. “We’ve been tortured for so long, I don’t even know how to explain it. Now that we’re back on the water, I’ve been trying to get back to our way of life –– our lifestyle out here. It is a lake; we all have lake houses, and this stems around the community, but it’s a lifestyle that we all choose to live, to be on the water –– to be a part of anything on the water.

People like Wright felt isolated from their community without the lake to visit friends. Lake resident and Ski Bees board member Jimmie Price is one of those who tried to make the best of a bad situation.

“Not having the lake was not fun,” Price said. “We thought we were going to be doing a lot more on the water. We all got our fishing boats and things like that in the water, and then we realized how much of a social activity it had all been before. The lake was really quiet. It was weird to not hear boats and music and the people. One thing we did have though, was while the lake was dry, we would come out here and play in the rapids and just hang out while the kids and dogs play. It was funny to look at the GPS in your cars, and it showed you driving through the lake full of water on the map.”

Driving through the lake bed is no longer an option, however, as the lake is back to full with a little help from late-spring rains. The water now bounces and splashes with wake as speedboats zoom around and skiers return to the water.

“When the water came back, it came back fast,” Price said. “We were fortunate enough to get all that rain, about eight inches; we would have had some form of high water event, but all it did was fill us and Lake Placid up at the same time. We were very, very fortunate for that. We had some issues with debris at first, but at this point it’s pretty well back to normal.”

Now that the wake is back on the lake, excitement fills the air at Lake Breeze Ski Lodge where Price drives a boat for the Ski Bees. When the water returned, it was a community event filled with strong emotions, according to both Wright and Price.

“When it first came back, we all had to relearn each other’s names,” Price joked. “But really it was exciting. We were at a friend’s house, and the neighbor lady saw a boat out, and she came over and was in tears just to see a boat on the water again. Losing the water was hard. It was like losing your favorite thing in the whole world. We lost not just the lake, but suffered a loss of community. But it’s finally back, and we couldn’t be happier.”

A full lake doesn’t just mean boats up and down the waterway, or the return of music to docks; it also means the return of the famous McQueeney Ski Bees who have been largely out of commission due to the lake drain. But time certainly didn’t shrink the crowds they draw. For their Fourth of July show, a mass of spectators lined the shores of Lake Breeze Ski Lodge eager for a peek at what the skiers had in store.

Ski Bees Board President Lacey Gosch was on hand helping organize things as the Ski Bees prepared for the show, and shared some insight into what the past several years have been like for the organization.

“As a club, we did a lot of things to make sure we were ready while the lake was down,” Gosch said. “We maintained the ski equipment, we had the ropes, and we had plans ready, like putting the ski jumps in the water. We worked over the course of the water being down to make sure all those pieces were in place so that when the water came back, we could just pick up where we left off. It seems like we would have lost a huge amount over the past four years, but yet, it’s kind of like riding a bicycle –– it’s something you just don’t forget how to do. We’re starting to see the growth; we’re starting to see the acts get better each week, and it’s just really exciting to see. The community is so excited to have everybody back and to have Ski Bees back on the water, ready to grow. I really look forward to the next couple of years as we continue to grow the organization and continue to add skiers.”

As the Ski Bees show commenced, skiers took to turbulent water to perform their skills. Some things have changed, especially the ages of the younger performers. While the water was down, kids that hadn’t skied yet grew up, while others just didn’t get any practice in. This had led to a time of regrowth for the Ski Bees.

“I think probably one of the biggest changes we’ve seen is that we have so many skiers that were younger skiers,” she said. “And now it’s years since they’ve seen the water and the shows. So what’s really interesting is they remember. Being able to see them on the water, doing some of the acts that they saw their older brothers and sisters and other people in the community doing –– all in all, the show has changed in that we are kind of having to regrow because of the time off the water. So as we begin to grow, we have skiers that were really working to develop their ski skills, teaching them some things that have just been lost with time. This is all because they haven’t had it year after year to grow up with the older skiers.”

Likely the biggest change to the show nowadays is the speed at which tricks are performed and the time between performers, but Gosch said this is all intentional to help younger skiers learn and master new skills.

“The show is a little bit slower than it used to be before, but some of that is by design to allow our skiers the time to grow athletically in the sport,” Gosch said. “But then it’s also to grow the club and to really bring the interest back. With each week, we have started to bring back acts that we used to do as we are able to train these kiddos. We’ll remind them like, ‘Hey, do you remember this,’ and they’re like, ‘no,’ but when we start to describe it, and then they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah! I remember so and so used to do that,’ and then they get excited and want to try it. We’re really moving forward; however, one thing I can say is that McQueeney has such a great community. There are so many skiers with the organization being around as long as it has that they’ve kind of come back. During this time, to come and ski and really show what they can do and help train these younger skiers is really a testament to the community.”

The Ski Bees and their surrounding community have certainly put in the work to bring the show back. On the Fourth, skiers both young and old raced around the lake waving American flags in all kinds of formations. The Bees even accomplished one of their most challenging tricks –– a three-tier stack of skiers. This is all proof of the hard work and effort they put in during the lake’s draining and return. The show was a spectacle, just like it has always been, and more than likely, will always be.

And as for life on Lake McQueeney –– well, it’s back, folks, and residents couldn’t be more ecstatic to have their favorite pastime back for good.