Nudism, fireworks and liquor
These infractions kept Canada’s national park wardens busy
NATIONAL POST
Nearly half the incidents of nudity that Parks Canada wardens dealt with in 2015 took place in Jasper National Park. Was it one incorrigible nudist or is Jasper a naturalist hotspot? Privacy laws mean we may never know. But data released about what keeps the guardians of Canada’s national parks busy tells other stories, too.
Across the country, officers spend their time responding to camping permit violations, highway violations and campfire violations, which make up about a quarter of the total incidents at national parks. Liquor violations (of course) and people entering restricted areas make up the top five, according to data from Parks Canada.
An incident is any situation that involves a park warden, said Tamaini Snaith, the director of the law enforcement branch for Parks Canada.
“It could even be things where there was no action taken at all. It could be a warning, it could be a ticket, it could be a charge, or it could be an opportunity for education,” said Snaith.
There were only 11 incidences of nudism (that’s how Parks Canada classifies it, rather than simply ‘nudity’) in 2015, which puts it near the bottom of the list of infractions. Five of those incidents happened in Jasper.
With Jasper taking the title of Canada’s nudity nerve centre, the other national parks are left to carve out slightly less exciting niches.
The 15 “explosive violations” — which is the park wardens’ unnerving way of recording fireworks infractions — were widely spread across the country. The most any one park recorded that year was two, even in the massively popular Banff National Park.
The numbers, though, don’t tell the whole story, said Snaith.
“If you see rising numbers over time in a certain park or in a certain issue, it doesn’t necessarily mean things are getting worse, it could actually mean we’re out there looking for it and taking action on it. It could be a sign of things getting better,” she said.
For example, Gros Morne National Park, on the western side of Newfoundland, had 74 incidents of illegal hunting and poaching, much more than any other park. It also has a much higher rate of snowmobiling, timber-harvesting and trapper and snaring violations.
“It is what we are out there looking for in a park like Gros Morne, with so much backcountry. There’s a lot of use of the backcountry and we do look for those kinds of issues to make sure we can nip it in the bud,” said Snaith.
Bruce Peninsula National Park has the most liquor violations and also the most “Enter Restricted Area/Facility” violations, which probably isn’t a coincidence.
Canada’s most trafficked national parks topped the list for sheer number of violations, with 1,811 incidents at Banff National Park and 834 at Jasper National Park but on a per capita basis those two parks see an average amount of mischief compared to other parks.
The best behaved park-goers are at Prince Edward Island National Park and Yoho National Park in British Columbia. In PEI, there’s roughly an incident for every 4,200 visitors and in Yoho it’s about every 4,100 visitors.
Terra Nova National Park in Newfoundland has one of the worst rates, with an incident for every 87 people who visit the park. Most of those incidents are littering, highway violations and liquor