Analysis of Ontario Parks Statistics 2004-2017

2019 Update on Ontario Parks Statistics

Greetings fellow campers,

It's been a while since I last reviewed the state of camping in Ontario through their annual parks statistics report - nearly 4 years actually. A lot has happened in that time - Canada turned 150 years old, gas prices dropped and rose again, the Canadian dollar has dropped substantially in value relative to the US dollar, and Ontario recently elected a new goverment. While it's too soon to analyse the data on the last point, we can look at the implications of the other two.

Last time I had a look, the number of park visitors had been in decline for a decade, dropping from 10.5 million visitors in 2005 to 8.5 million in 2014, a stunning 19% decline in the number of visitors at a time when Ontario's population had risen by 11% (2006-2016). Looking at the latest data, this trend has reversed somewhat, which is good news. In fact, park visitation reached recent highs over this period, topping out at over 10.5 million once again in 2016 (I should reiterate though, this is drawing from a larger population, so if the number of out-of-province visitors has stayed constant, the proportion of people who are camping is still in decline).

As I mentioned, gas prices and the Canadian dollar have declined in that period (though gas prices have seen an increase lately), making visits from American tourists potentially more attractive in recent years. The data available in the 2014 report suggested this may have been a factor with the share of US visitors dropping from 11% to 6% between 2006 and 2011 (the only two years where data were available). Looking at the figure above, there does seem to be some sort of inverse relationship here, with annual visitors seeming to dip/stagnate when gas prices rise (to some degree), but the drop in gas prices in 2009 did not provide a bump in visitors. As well, I ran a regression analysis with visitors and gas prices (I know, a very limited data set) and for what it's worth neither seem to be statistically significant for the park system as a whole.

The number of camping nights per camper had also dropped in 2014, by around 10-15%, from around 3.7-3.8 to 3.3. So it seemed that campers are staying for shorter amounts of time. Unfortunately, this trend has not reversed much, with the average stay per camper still hovering at around 3.2 in 2017, down from the recent high of 3.8 in 2006.

A number of factors could be at play here, including increased nightly camping fees over that time period. For example, regular "premium" camping fees for an electrical site wish showers was $33/night in 2005, incl GST. In 2017, it was $51.13/night, incl HST. If you adjust the $33 for inflation, it would have been $40.18 in 2017 - so that would give us roughly a 25% increase in nightly fees. I should also point out that GST was only 7%, while HST is 13%. It's not much better in the backcountry; in 2005, Bon Echo and Algonquin were $7.50 and $9, respectively - $10.17 and $12.43, in 2017; these represent increases under 15% after adjusting for inflation, but it's worth noting that these are per person fees. In Algonquin, you can have up to 9 people on a site, so that would be a nightly fee of $112 for a fully-occupied backcountry site in the province's more popular interior camping park!

I should state that this average length calculation I've made may be flawed; when looking at the definitions provided in the park statistics, we can see that "average length" and "campers" data seem to contain a circular reference to one another; determining which is derived from the other isn't clear from their glossary (at least, I think we can say for certain that "camper nights" is taken from Ontario Parks gate data and I would guess that "campers" is too). I would expect this to be independent of factors such as gas prices or the CAD, and would have expected that that those campers who make the time and effort to visit a park would want to stay longer due to all that congestion and those high gas prices.

The number of campers per visitor, which might indicate levels of interest in camping, have stayed pretty steady - a very slight dip in the years between 2005-2012, but recovering back to 2004 levels by 2017. This suggests that overall interest in camping is stable, and day visitors are continuing to do what they do, with no new motivation to stay the night.

A topic that I didn't touch upon during my previous analysis was the backcountry, which is odd, because I love the backcountry. Personally, I have hope that if Ontario Parks see increasing interest in backcountry camping, they'll increase the total number of sites available by preserving and developing more crown land for this purpose. So I've decided to dig into the data this time to see how visitation has changed in this period. Ontario Parks doesn't do regional summary statistics in the annual parks stats report (which can be obtained if you ask very nicely to the folks at the MNRF), so all of the data needed to be entered manually into a spreadsheet. I only have the reports from 2010-2017 available, but hopefully that provides an interesting picture nonetheless.

I think that the results are indeed interesting. Looking at the overall picture, you can see that there has been an impressive increase in interior camping nights. If you simply compare 2017 to 2010, some shocking figures result; 25% increase province wide, 34% increase in NE Ontario, and a shocking 200% increase in SE Ontario. However, the numbers vary year-to-year; I would guess this has something to do with weather, perhaps particularly around long weekends, but this is just a guess without more detailed data. If you just take the 3 year averages around 2010-12 and 2015-17, you get more plausible sounding increases of 15% province wide, 9% increase in Algonquin, 80% increase in SE, and 22% in the NE. The only alarming figure is a 4% drop in backcountry camper nights in the NW. However, since there are just so many opportunities up there for crown land camping (free!), it could just be that any increases in interior camping are occurring outside of the parks system.

The overall changes in interior camping activity could mean that people are staying longer, more people are staying in the backcountry, or both. Ontario Parks doesn't publish data on the number of interior campers per park or per region (just camper nights), so we can't say for sure. But what we can say for sure is that this is more revenue for Ontario Parks from interior camping. Of course, over 50% of all these camper nights (270,000 in 2017) are spent in Algonquin park. Just for a point of reference, there are 1900 interior sites in Algonquin - "only" 25% of all the interior sites in operating parks. So yes, it can be said that Algonquin received a disproportionate share of the Parks system's backcountry revenue. But given its location within a 3 hour drive of the bulk of the province's 13 million people, this makes sense, especially if you think all rocks/trees/lakes look the same.

A few other points - while Algonquin is certainly an interior camping behemoth, there has only been a 9% increase in camper nights (on the order of population growth in that time). The NE, on the other hand, has seen a 22% increase, while SE Ontario has seen a 80% increase in interior camper nights. This SE growth is a phenomenal increase, even once you take into account that half of this increase is attributable to the switch of Kawartha Highlands from non-operating (free to use) park to operating park. I take this to be a positive story about increased interest in backcountry camping that can be reached within a day's drive and I hope that we can find more crown sites that can be developed for Provincial Parks.

I could go on with more analysis but I'll stop there. I'd love to hear from you if you'd like to see more analysis, fellow camping quants. I could do some analysis on individual parks, engagement with activities...anything you might be interested in, just ask and I'll see if I can tinker with the data. I might even do it if I don't hear from you, I'm that much of a camping nerd. Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Review: Pickerel Lake, Quetico Provincial Park

Location: 2 hrs West of Thunder Bay

Website: Friends or Ontario Park
Map: Google
Camping Facilities: Backcountry (Wilderness)
Grade: A+
Stargazing: Didn't have the good fortune, but probably pretty good
Summary: Wish I had more time...
Thoughts: I remember the first time I heard about Quetico, back in 2001, calling up the Ontario Parks reservation line and being told that "a $100 deposit was necessary for any bookings" in the park. I remember thinking "Where? Why?". It seemed odd that this random park needed an arbitrary deposit fee, but there must have been a good reason. That reason is still a mystery, mainly because I've never bothered to ask anyone up until this point. But I did look up the park to see what all the fuss was about and it is an enchanting concept: imagine a park that's about half the size of Algonquin park, where logging activities are strictly forbidden (i.e., no false vistas for the paddling thoroughfares like those found in Algonquin), where motorboats are not welcome, where the current natural state is preserved in perpetuity, where there are no grandfathered resorts in the interior, where the campsites are unmarked, where the portages are unsigned, and where you can cross the Canadian-American border by canoe. It all sounds like what a backcountry park should be. But this is one of the few in the park system where all this is true.

The call of a calm bay is hard to resist on Pickerel...

I had myself one night to check out Quetico. One night - 400,000ha. Needless to say, you can't even scratch the surface. And it had to be somewhere that wouldn't crush us in our attempt to access the park in the midst of a fierce late-summer storm. Plus it had to be a reasonable drive from Thunder Bay. It's limiting, to be sure, and our first pick (Baptism Creek - a fitting name for one's first foray into the park) was not taking any new campers that night. So we took the next best thing in Pickerel Lake. It's a 30-minute drive off the Trans-Canada, down a pretty sketchy road, till you're finally at the Pickerel Lake parking lot. Then you have to do a long 500m portage. I say "long" because it's one of those ones that feels a lot longer than what's marked for some reason. It's narrow and rocky, plus I found some folks on the trail less than respectful of portage etiquette (the person with the canoe on their head has right of way, people). It's also pretty mucky, but staff do their best to keep your boots clean with some boardwalks. Note: there is no park office on this road, so you'll have to check in at the park pavilion / car campground. The pavilion is probably worthwhile stopping for in itself, one of the nicer park gatehouses I've seen. Nice facilities too.

A panorama of Pickerel

Pickerel Lake is a monstrous, wind-whipping East-West lake. All the canoeists we met on the lake were raring to go and we all smelt a whiff of competition in the air as the sites are first-come first-served. More so than in the Algonquin or Killarney spirit, because there's no guarantee a good, clear campsite will be waiting for you (at least in those other parks, you book a spot on Big Crow Lake, you know you have a spot on Big Crow Lake). There a quota systems in place which limit the number of people in the backcountry, so there's probably no reason to worry that you won't find anything good; plus seeing as you can technically camp anywhere, well, all  you need to find is an open flat-ish piece of ground.

We set off into strong gusts that nearly swamped us within the first 15 minutes; they slowed our progress to a crawl as we tried to make our way east into the Lake. Our fellow canoeists were off to the races, everybody seemed to know what they were doing and where they were headed. We fell to the back of the pack and quickly realised that if we wanted to enjoy what was left to enjoy of the day, we had to take the first campsite that we could get. After two false stops (they looked like sites from the water, but on shore they were not worth unloading for), we found a keeper. And it was a pretty nice one to be sure, but that's the trick of unmarked campsites - you never know where the next one is and if it might be a bit better.

Nothing beats knowing you have

a good stack of firewood

Our site was full of dead fall, even though it was on a narrow point with sparse tree cover. The bugs were kept at bay and we were able to enjoy a roaring fire for 6 hours while we polished off a bottle's worth of bourbon (no bottles or cans allowed!). There are no picnic benches, no privies, no firepits with accompanying grills. It's all as basic as camping gets. Sometimes it left me wanting, but the benefits outweigh any of the strikes against. Oh, and contrary to what my ignorant Southern Ontario brain guessed - yes, you do get leeches in lakes up north. So watch where you're swimming, a number were trying to make a meal out of my canoe (nice try, jerks).

Endless wilderness...

I can't recommend a trip up to Quetico enough. It's the true canoeists mecca in Ontario, maybe Canada. The setting is magical, mainly because you know that it just goes on forever and that it's as pristine a spot as you'll find this far south in the province. The promise of all the countless wilderness lakes, pictographs, old growth forest, giant white pines, waterfalls, and human history that reach far beyond big Pickerel Lake's treeline, it's enough to blow one's mind. Support our great Northern Ontario parks and don't worry about the $100 deposit.

Review: Grundy Lake Car Camping

Location:  80 km N of Parry Sound

Website: Ontario Parks
Map: Google Maps
Camping Facilities: Car Camping with some pseudo backcountry
Grade: B+
Stargazing: Good, saw the Northern Lights both times I've visited.
Summary: Nice car camping with plenty of privacy and large sites
Thoughts: I was taking my chances when I pulled into Grundy Lake at 8pm on a mid-August evening. I didn't have a booking and I had planned to pull into one of the paddle-in sites on one of the three park lakes. It being as late as it was, my camping buddies and myself decided to take it easy and just grab whatever was available in the car camping areas. When you show up that late on a weekend in August with nothing booked, your expectations are low. Fortunately, Grundy PP doesn't do a lot of things wrong.

Huge car campsite in Radio-Free Area

The sites that we found were excellent. Not only were there sites in the radio-free area, those that were available were well-treed, sandy and private. We were stunned at the size of our site and that it was right next to the water. Lots of nice flat spots to set up a tent, amenities (water, toilets) were close by. And this was with zero planning.

View out on Grundy Lake from Radio-Free Area

The one problem the park seemed to be having at that time was a few rogue bears that were pillaging campsites. While there had been no dangerous encounters reported, the bears were having their way with any food that was improperly or semi-properly stored. It really just reinforces the need to ALWAYS lock your food away when you're done with it and keep your site free of food scraps and odors (including from toothpaste and deodorant).

We headed out on Grundy Lake to our canoe-in site the next day, but were pleased with the experience of "settling" for car camping. Great spot.

Park Statistics for 2014

Park Visitors, 2004 - 2014

I've been tracking park visit statistics in recent years and the results have been troubling. For some reason, the number of visits to most parks has been in decline. Ontario has added nearly 700,000 hectares of park land in the past 10 years, which means more of the province is receiving this higher level of legal protection. I think that most conservation enthusiasts can see this as a win. However, an area of concern also seems to be emerging; visitation to parks seems to have peaked in 2005, declining from the high of 10.5 million to the 2014 level of 8.5 million. Does this mean people are less interested in Ontario's parks? It's not clear.

Gas prices and the Canadian dollar have increased in that period, making visits from American tourists less attractive. The slim data available in the 2014 report seems to suggest this has been a factor with the share of US visitors dropping from 11% to 6% between 2006 and 2011 (the only two years where data were available). As well, the number of camping nights per camper has also recently dropped, from around 3.7-3.8 to 3.3. So campers that are still visiting seem to be staying for shorter amounts of time. One would expect this to be independent of factors such as gas prices or the CAD, and guess that perhaps it's possible that those campers who stay longer are the same who come from far away and make a longer holiday out of it. Unfortunately, this is a more recent phenomenon that occurred after the presumed drop in American attendance, with 2012 being the year that seems to be the start of this trend. Are campers not enjoying their stays? Perhaps these are weather related issues? I don't have the data on hand to make a guess.

The number of campers per visitor, which might indicate levels of interest in camping, have stayed pretty steady - a very slight dip in the years between 2005-2012, but recovering back to 2004 levels in 2013, 2014. This suggests that overall interest in camping is steady, and day visitors are continuing to do what they do, with no new motivation to stay the night.

Low attendance and interest can have pretty dire consequences for our park system. I highlight a few parks that have had pretty low visitation rates in my guide to Camping in Ontario. Sadly, some of the parks have recently seen changes in management or have been closed. For example, Mississagi is now operated by the City of Elliot Lake. Obatanga and The Shoals are representative of some gems that are no longer operating. This has resulted in a loss of accessibility to these protected areas, as even low-maintenance interior sites are blocked by closed park entrance gates. Hopefully this is something that will be corrected soon, but with continuing provincial budget deficits, it seems unlikely.

An even worse scenario would be for Ontario Parks to try to lure more campers in through higher-impact activities; the potential exists that, in pursuit of greater appeal, Ontario's parks current peaceful character suffers as a result of a rise in incompatible uses. I have faith in the wisdom of park managers, and hope that this won't be the case. My feeling is that the province of Ontario has undersold the immensity and variety of its park system, focusing more on promoting parks such as Algonquin, Bon Echo and Killarney; meanwhile, beautiful alternatives to these exist that are under-visited (examples include Quetico, Lake Superior and Temagami).

Fortunately some clarity about park interest will be available in 2015 and 2016's data. The Canadian dollar has plummeted in recent years, making it less attractive for Canadians to vacation outside of Canada, and much more attractive for the flow to start coming the other way. It will be interesting to see how this pans out and am interested in hearing your thoughts.

Review: Eels Creek (Near Petroglyphs Provincial Park)

Location: 50 km (1 hr) North of Peterborough
Website:  My CCR
Map: Google Maps or look at the bottom right corner here, starting from Haultain

Approaching the 1st portage

Camping Facilities: Backcountry (Crown land)
Grade: B
Summary: A nice day/overnight river trip, which is easily accessible.
Thoughts: A very fun river trip, with just a few short portages and some whitewater that can be run in high season (though not by me).  One of my regular camping buddies and I thought we would give this one a try, since its relatively close to his home.  This was the first trip where we'd done the shuttle arrangement, with a car stashed at both the put-in and the take out.  Kevin Callan provides instructions on where to do this in his book "A Paddler's Guide to Ontario's Cottage Country" (I highly recommend this book for trips within a few hours of Southern Ontario's major population centres).


The route starts under a bridge on Highway 28, with a paddle some reedy sections that the river winds through to ease you in.  Admittedly, this is kind of nice, especially when the water is high.  After a while you get to some tricky looking whitewater (in May it looks tricky, at least).  So this means a few portages around rapids and then a longer portage just before High Falls.  High Falls provides the only serious portage on the trip (and its not really that bad, just a few hundred metres).  Once you're past the falls, you most of your way through the trip.  We stayed at the campsite just below the falls, which was a nice, spacious site (see the video).  However, if I do recall, there is no thunderbox available at this site (and I would also presume the other sites as well), so bring your trowel.  Around the falls, there is a trailhead which provides access into Petroglyphs Provincial Park.  This is worth the hike (though we didn't end up doing it due to time restrictions), since the historical and cultural significance of these carvings is awe-inspiring.

We actually ran the last set of rapids, with great hesitation and trepidation,  and were quite sheepish when all was said and done. It was somewhat anticlimactic, after all the scouting and determining the safest path to take, just to avoid a 50 m portage.

Falls at the 1st portage

River paddles are a lot of fun; there's scenery that is continually changing, you really don't have to worry about wind and there are inevitably lots of water falls to enjoy.  This trip is very easily accessible and as a result, we noted a bit of litter around (broken beer bottles); It seems to be a fine place for teenage kids to enjoy the spoils of raiding their parents beer stocks, from what we saw.  As well, something about this place gives you a sense that you're never far from civilization, but I can't put my finger on it.  However, I think I can recommend this trip if you want to get an easy river paddle in and don't have much time.