{"id":3924,"date":"2020-12-02T11:11:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T15:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=3924"},"modified":"2020-12-02T11:13:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T15:13:00","slug":"park-canada-pushes-back-campsite-bookings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2020\/12\/02\/park-canada-pushes-back-campsite-bookings\/","title":{"rendered":"Park Canada pushes back campsite bookings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Camping

Front country rustic cabin at Kejimkujik National Park. Photo Parks Canada<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Campers looking forward to booking their summer excursions in Canada\u2019s national parks will have to wait until spring to do so.<\/p>\n

Parks Canada has announced campsite bookings, which normally open in January have been pushed back to April due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Visitor Experience Manager at Kejimkujik National Park Sophie Borcoman says they want to give campers flexibility in their planning because of the uncertainty around what the pandemic precautions may look like next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, across the country, we\u2019re giving visitors the opportunity to make more informed decisions for their vacation plans for 2021 by not opening the reservation system until April,\u201d said Borcoman.<\/p>\n

The pandemic has been a bit a boon to Kejimkujik as people looked for ways to get out of the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of people coming out, especially from Halifax, who wanted to have an experience outdoors and be outside, and for many of them, it was the first time for them to experience Keji, this summer,\u201d said Borcoman.<\/p>\n

That experience looked different this year as Keji\u2019s main camping area, Jeremy\u2019s Bay, was closed for extensive renovations.<\/p>\n

Washrooms, wastewater management and water treatment plants and the accompanying infrastructure that had been in place since the 1970s was torn down, dug up and replaced with modern facilities.<\/p>\n

Borcoman says because most of the renos were being done outside, their contractors were able to work through the lockdowns and they\u2019re on track to re-open the campground this spring.<\/p>\n

\"New

New water treatment facility at Kejimkujik. Photo credit Parks Canada<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The number of visitors to Keji was about a third of what the park would normally see in the summer season, but Borcoman is impressed that many people came out to enjoy the national park even without facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the front-country campground was closed, it didn\u2019t seem to affect the backcountry at all,\u201d said Borcoman. \u201cSo we had really good visitation in our backcountry this season. People had lots of space to do their own thing in a socially distanced way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Borcoman said the park will close for the winter but the gates will be open and people can still enjoy the trails for hiking, skiing and snowshoeing.<\/p>\n

The reservation system will be open for summer bookings at 8:00am Friday, April 23.<\/p>\n

Reported by Ed Halverson\u00a0<\/strong>
\nE-mail:\u00a0edhalversonnews@gmail.com<\/a><\/strong>
\nTwitter: @edwardhalverson<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Campers looking forward to booking their summer excursions in Canada\u2019s national parks will have to wait until spring to do so. Parks Canada has announced campsite bookings, which normally open in January have been pushed back to April due to COVID-19. Visitor Experience Manager at Kejimkujik National Park Sophie Borcoman says they want to give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[64,63,136,137],"class_list":["post-3924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-keji","tag-kejimkujik","tag-parks-canada","tag-sophie-borcoman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3929,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions\/3929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}