Biblical theme park to open near Moose Jaw

A new theme park wants to bring the Bible to life near Moose Jaw.

The park will showcase full-size replicas, accurate to the Bible’s measurements, of Noah’s Ark and the Tabernacle.

The park will be built on three to four acres beside Sunset Cemetery. Marc L’hoir manages the cemetery and said the three-level ark will be a massive tourist attraction.

“On the first level it will have a children’s interactive play area, the second level will depict the animals on the ark and the third level will be a 3-D technology level that does a walkthrough of the life of Jesus,” said L’hoir.

The ark will be close to 440 ft. long, 75 ft. wide and about 42 ft. tall.

The park won’t be an amusement park with rides, but more of an educational walking tour with interactive exhibits with a price tag of about $1.2 million.

Wenqing Sun, a Chinese businessman, is the brains behind the project. He converted to Christianity from Buddhism after seeing the religion in action after an earthquake emergency.

“He noticed all the Christian people went to help with the evacuees…and none of the Buddhist people went to help,” he said. “This is part of his legacy.”

Sun built a similar project in China but wanted to make a larger version so he looked for the space in Canada.

“In Saskatchewan here he found the land base where he could actually build full-size replicas. You’re not going to find it anywhere else in the world. This is going to be one-of-a-kind with full-scale replicas of the dimensions that were set out in the Bible,” said L’hoir.

Sun is bringing some of the construction workers who completed his first project in China over to build the theme park.

“They’ve constructed one in China before this. That’s why they have to come over and do this one, so it gets put together the way they want it. I believe they’ll be doing the whole project,” said L’hoir.

The theme park is expected to take four years to build so it won’t be open until 2020.