Take a family road trip back in time at a motel near Terra Nova Park

For nearly six decades, the Clode Sound Motel and Restaurant has been an iconic spot for the classic Newfoundland and Labrador outdoor summer family vacation.

"I just love it. I love the flowers that's around. I think it's a great place," says motel manager Nellie Spracklin.

Going there is like taking a holiday from 2018 and visiting a time of free-range outdoor play, homemade bread and jam, and hotel bedding flapping on clotheslines.

Started in 1959

The Clode Sound Motel and Restaurant is nestled on 10 sheltered acres of land in Charlottetown, N.L., just outside the border of Terra Nova National Park.

Nellie's father, Don Spracklin, and his brother, Leslie Spracklin, started the business as a restaurant in 1959.

That was two years after Terra Nova National Park had been founded, but while the Trans-Canada Highway going through it was still under construction.

"You would have to take a ferry at Charlottetown to go to Bunyan's Cove when Dad started the restaurant because you couldn't get to Port Blandford by car," recalled Spracklin.

Brook-fed swimming pool

In the 1960s, the Spracklin brothers added motel rooms, and a rarity in Newfoundland a large outdoor swimming pool.

"But instead of blue water, [the pool had] dark water from the brook with no chemicals in it," said Nellie Spracklin.

The Clode Sound Motel and Restaurant soon became a huge hit with a growing number of Newfoundland middle-class families, who began to have enough time and money to take family road trips.

"Huge families, kids coming into the restaurant for ice cream, it was really neat to see all the kids," said Spracklin.

Aging gracefully

The Clode Sound Motel and Restaurant looks good for its 59 years.

The outdoor pool now has a conventional water supply and modern chlorination system.

The hand-built barbecue pits, swing setsand clotheslines are all in constant use.

In back of the motel is a grassy area where generations of children have run freewhile their parents relax on a long deck overlooking them.

There's even a functioning telephone booth in a corner of the motel parking lot.

"People come and want to take it, and think it's a souvenir, but it's not," laughed Spracklin.

Keeping it in the family

These days, the Clode Sound Motel attracts visitors from Ontario and British Columbia, and a few German tourists.

"They think it's paradise," said Spracklin.

However, said Spracklin, the motel's main clientele is still families from Newfoundland and Labrador, although these days, the families are smaller.

Generations of visitors come, sometimes armed with photo albums showing holidays they took at the motel decades ago as children.

Spracklin said one extended family has been taking an annual holiday at the motel every summer for the past 30 years.

Generations of employment

Spracklin says she is most proud of the legacy that the business has created in Charlottetown.

"It started with my mom. She trained many women in Charlottetown with the waitressing and cooking and housekeeping," said Spracklin.

Despite her 15-hour work days, Spracklin said, she is confident that another family member will fill her shoes when she finally retires.

She said all 12 Spracklin grandchildren of the original owners have worked there.

"And now their great-grandchildren work at the motel, which is pretty exciting."

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