B.C.’s Joffre Lakes Park will be partially closed, allowing for conservation and tourism

PEMBERTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA – An agreement between the BC government and the First Nations that manage Joffre Lakes Provincial Park will see the popular tourist spot closed for part of the year to protect its “natural and cultural values.”

The announcement comes after a dispute over public use of the park led to the Lilwat and N’Quatqua First Nations closing access to the park for about a month last year.

Environment Minister George Heyman said Thursday that the decision to close the park for a short time comes after consultations with the two countries and conversations with other local residents about “heavy visitor use.”

“What we want to do across the province is work with First Nations around the management of parks where they’re interested, around making sure we have a good idea of ​​how much stress the environment in the park can support without actually destroying the features that the park brings with it, people there,” Heyman said.

In 2019, visits to the park with mountain peaks and aqua blue lakes reached a record high of 193,000 visitors, an increase of more than 200 percent since 2010.

Visitors to the park are now required to reserve free day passes to reduce visitors’ impact on the natural environment, and Heyman said 500 passes are allowed per day.

The park will be closed this season from April 30 to May 15, June 14 to 23 and September 3 to October 6, allowing indigenous communities to hold cultural celebrations and traditional fall harvest practices.

Heyman said the closures will also allow the park to “rest and recuperate”, with visitor numbers reaching as high as 1,000 per day before restrictions were introduced.

Lilwat Nation Chief Dean Nelson said in a statement that the park area is sacred to his community and the closures are necessary for the well-being of his people.

“By implementing these closures, we aim to reintroduce our community to an area where they have been marginalized,” he said. “The time and space created by these closures will allow our youth, elders and all citizens of Lilwat to exercise their inherent rights as they reconnect with the land.”

The Lilwat and N’Quatqua countries suspended public access to the park for part of August and September last year for their harvest celebrations, claiming they were asserting their ownership rights to the land.

Heyman said the Lilwat and N’Quatqua Nations’ desire for periods of closure at Joffre Lakes “is not an unreasonable request,” and that the province will consider similar requests from other Indigenous groups on a case-by-case basis.

The province said monitoring the increasing impact of visitors to Joffre Lakes has revealed the “need for improved visitor management” to prevent environmental degradation due to “unsustainably high human traffic.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 25, 2024.

The Canadian Press