Parks Canada all-inclusive camping packages

Thoughts on this??

Facing dwindling attendance , park officials want to draw new Canadians and children of urban families into the great outdoors. And the demand is there – new programs that gently ease fledgling campers into the experience have had a positive response, inducting newcomers into the quintessentially Canadian world of canoes, sleeping bags and black flies.

The number of visitors to Canada’s national parks has dropped 22 per cent from 1995, while the country’s population has increased nearly 18 per cent – prompting Parks Canada to ask why. One realization: Not enough attention has been paid to the needs of the nation’s transforming demographic.

I hope every new family that takes to the Great Outdoors,will also have the knack to Clean up after themselves!Here in California,Pristine Wilderness is getting further,& further away,Sad but True!

add in the Americans who can't afford a simple canoe trip now that the fees have jumped to $20 a night.a ten day trip for my wife and i would be over $400 with the other fees and cost of passports.
what was a nice affordable outdoor vacation for us is now gone.deep pocket fly-in fisherman seem like the only ones welcome now.

Man!That price almost come's out to Hunting Mulies(Mule Deer)in California!Conservation is Truly Expensive,however I think,If I were to pay that amount for a Camping/Canoeing adventure in Canada,& I lived in Minnesota,I'd be very tempted to wash my dirty drawers/socks riverside,on my way out!

I have not paid for camping or fees in National Parks for years. I agree it is very expensive. Even the Provincial Parks and many of the more popular Forest Recreation Sites are expensive. These fees range from 18.00 to 38.00 per night. That said, there are many FSR sites that are free....but depending where you are, they attract the people who have a tendency to drink and party all hours of the day.

Needless to say, all our camping is freely done on public use crown (government) land and there are millions of acres to choose that perfect campsite from...with no crowds and partiers.

Are Canadians going soft and flabby like the British are going??

God forbid if some bright spark within the National Parks decides that Wireless Internet access is essential so their paying customers can watch;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCPSh47gHz8

on their iPads.

Peter Potter doesn't want to go camping.

Part of the reason is the decline in travellers from the US because of the inflation of the CDN $ and downturn in the US economy... But mostly its because we are more urban than ever before and kids have been brought up on all things electronic and not enough outdoors. Since this story is Toronto-centric, you could add that Toronto has been heavily influenced with immigrants from other countries who don't have a background or tradition in camping. The challenge is to educate them about the fun part of being outdoors instead of living in a concrete jungle.
PS. "For Better of For Worse" comic strip just finished a storyline of the family who went out to Northern Ontario for 2 weeks of roughing it. Interesting read.

Many new Canadian immigrants don't have any camping and outdoorsy pursuits as part of their culture or experience. Plus, they are overwhelmingly urban. So I suppose Parks Canada is trying to bridge the gap.

Will it work? Who knows. But it does take a strong constituency of voters who value our parks system to hold the line against creeping "development." Otherwise, political will and funding erode away. So maybe that's the end game.

I suspect that some of the downturn in attendance has to do with perceptions of how dangerous the parks can be. It is like what happened to beach attendance when the movie "Jaws" came out. The parks and wilderness areas just don't make the news unless someone gets lunched on by a cougar or bear.

Some time back I told a friend I was going out to a nearby wilderness area and he asked if I had a gun. I said I own one but didn't bring it. He tried to get me to take the shotgun he had in his truck. He meant well but the impression he got from the news was that the woods were dangerous with people getting attacked by wild animals all the time. I tried to explain that odds are I was far safer in the woods than I was in town.

I can't decipher the fees, so to camp there, you have to pay entry fee, camping fee, fire permit, dump station permit, fishing permit, and whatever else permit I missed and they are all per day? No wonder people don't go anymore.