An erroneous news story about free admission to Canada’s national parks and historic sites is being blamed for stirring up unnecessary confusion in Jasper National Park.
Published on Jan. 2, the article in question stated visitors to Canada’s national parks wouldn’t need a park pass this year and wouldn’t suffer any repercussions.
Steve Young, a communications officer for JNP, quickly quashed the news report and said it’s not true.
Despite offering free admission, Young said visitors must have a park pass. However, if visitors are caught without one, Young said Parks will simply give visitors a free park pass.
“Yes, you do need a park pass to get into the park and one of the reasons we have that in place is so we can keep an eye on things,” said Young, explaining the erroneous story misquoted a Parks Canada official.
The inaccurate report follows news that more than 8,000 people made campsite reservations in Jasper National Park on Jan. 10—a new opening day record.
“We see this as very positive,” said Young. “People are getting the message that you have to reserve ahead if they want to camp in the park.”
In preparation for high visitation this year, Parks Canada said it intends to add more travel ambassadors, cleaners and campground attendants during the summer.
“The travel ambassadors will keep an eye on the roads especially on the (Icefields) Parkway,” said Young, adding the agency will also be assigning more of its wildlife guardians to high traffic areas like the Maligne Lake Road.
JNP has more than 1,800 campsites, but Parks said for most of the summer these sites are booked solid. To deal with the predicted increase in visitation, the agency is opening many of Jasper’s campgrounds in early May and closing them later in September.
The agency has also placed two new facilities—the House and the Icehouse at the Palisades Centre—for rent on its reservation system. Backcountry reservations open on Jan. 25 at 8 a.m.
“What we’re trying to do, and residents of Jasper can help with this, is encourage people to reserve, reserve, reserve in advance,” Young said. “We’re having talks with the municipality and we’re making sure that we’re all on the same page, and we’ll be sharing information with the municipality and Tourism Jasper to make sure we can manage people the best way we can.”
Alan Fehr, superintendent of JNP, said the park’s staff will be well organized and he predicts things are “going to go fairly smoothly” for the remainder of 2017.
“Will we have a few problems here and there? Of course we will, but that’s part of normal operations, things happen. That’s part of being an operational park that has many campgrounds, many day-use areas, many trails and a townsite in it,” he said.
In addition to encouraging people to make reservations early, Parks Canada is also encouraging Jasper residents to pick up a new resident’s pass at the Parks Canada office in the train station if their pass expired at the end of 2016. The passes have been specially designed as a keepsake for Canada’s 150th birthday.
“We want to make sure people don’t get out of the habit of doing this. If you get out of the habit then people will assume they don’t have to do it anymore and then we’ll have a problem next year,” said Young.
Note: A previous version of this story had stated "Despite offering free admission, Young said visitors must have a park pass and anyone caught without one could face charges under the National Parks Act." A few days after publication Young changed his answer and said anyone caught without a park pass will simply been given one and will not possibly face charges under the National Parks Act. The Fitzhugh regrets any confusion this may have caused.
Kayla Byrne
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