Parks Day will be celebrated across the country on July 17th as a national day to recognize the importance of parks and the contributions they make to healthy, happy, and diverse ecosystems.
First recognized across Canada in 1990, this year marks 31 years of celebrating Canada’s beautiful
In BC, there will be 40 different park ambassadors rotating through provincial parks from Victoria, Sea to Sky , Lower Mainland, Parksville, and Kamloops this summer.
Volunteer park ambassadors will be out interacting with visitors providing fun activities and information about the parks to reduce things like litter, people wandering off trails, safety incidents, pets off-leash, and negative wildlife interactions.
“With so many people wanting to enjoy parks these days, it’s more important than ever to help them have great and safe experiences,” says Andy Day, CEO of the BC Parks Foundation.
“Having young Ambassadors out in parks is a triple win,” says Day. “Park visitors get great information and experiences, young people get a dream job, and our parks stay clean and beautiful.”
BC Parks Foundation was formed several years ago as the official charitable partner to BC’s parks system, and one of its first goals was to bring interpretation back after it was cut in 2001.
In 2020 the foundation did a trail run in several parks and found that having ambassadors greeting visitors was a great success, ambassadors interacted with over 6600 park visitors and ran almost 300 programs through the summer.
This year ambassadors have already interacted with more than 6700 people in 12 parks around the province.
“Interpretation is key to any great park system, both in terms of improving experiences for visitors and taking care of parks,” says Day. “Ambassadors connect people to the natural world, and create lifelong memories for visitors. They also provide information and activities that help keep parks clean, safe and beautiful.”
BC Parks recently announced that free day use passes will continue in some parks across the summer, to find out where you can get your free pass click here.
