We probably should have written this editorial in January – because that’s when it might have helped someone.
But we didn’t. So, now we, like thousands of other folks in B.C. who actually believe in fairy tales and tourism ads, thought we could book a provincial campsite before the kids go back to school.
Dream on.
By now most campsites are booked as the province has moved to a virtual full-time online reservation system. Gone are the days when you used to be able to say on a Friday morning, “Let’s go camping this weekend!” Now, you have to look at the vacation schedule and plan ahead – way ahead – to ensure you even have a chance at a campsite. Booking a European cruise is easier.
It all started decades ago when the Liberals, then under Gordon Campbell, started enticing private developers to view the great outdoors as a Northern Disneyland to be squeezed for sparse family dollars. Large campgrounds were to have “entertainment” facilities that would make the old nature trails seem, well, boring. Folks might want to pitch a tent, but there were yurts and modern cabins to be had as well.
A backlash by British Columbians, who actually thought camping was about getting away from civilization and all that it entails, cooled the government’s jets a bit, but you just knew they were waiting for another time. And that time has apparently come. With a bit of a twist.
Now, you just can’t get a spot in a provincial campground, so you’re forced to go to private campgrounds. We’re not saying that there aren’t a lot of very nice private campgrounds in B.C. There are. But you can usually hear the folks in the next site snoring (to put it nicely) and, of course, there’s the corner “country” store full of everything you tried to leave behind in the city. It just isn’t the same as a “real” campground where you can hear the soft crunch of leaves underfoot when a raccoon trundles by in the night.
Before this last Canada Day long weekend, the lack of campsites even triggered a death threat. Some businesses are “scalping” reservations for foreign campers and making a big profit. This is wrong. B.C. taxpayers subsidize those campgrounds and parks and should get first dibs on them.
When campsite reservations are scalped like rock concert tickets, it’s time for a better plan. Let’s fix this before someone starts tipping over outhouses.
