
The Wells Gray Park Visitor Information Centre.
The head of Tourism Wells Gray says there have been some impacts to the provincial park near Clearwater this year because of wildfires that were several hours away.
Claire Hanna, the Executive Director of Tourism Wells Gray, says the fires near Barkerville in the Cariboo were “especially troubling” for the Clearwater area.
“Because while there were evacuated in the Barkerville area, Wells Gray Park which is five or six hours away was not impacted at all and was never at risk of being evacuated,” Hanna said.
“There was a lot of miscommunication online around that that caused a bit of issue with people wanting to come and visit Clearwater and Wells Gray.”
Hanna also says there has been a drop in tourists because of the wildfire that forced the evacuation of Jasper in Alberta. She says it appears that many domestic tourists have been cancelling their trips entirely because of wildfires.
“And so we definitely have taken a hit and we’re seeing a slowdown in actually more domestic travel than European travellers who are already here and holidaying and willing to get out and come up to Clearwater regardless of the fact that they can’t get through to Jasper,” Hanna said.
“We do encourage locals to get out and enjoy their own backyard.”
Hanna says the majority of wildfire impacts locally were in the area of Murtle Lake, west of Blue River, which was closed by a wildfire that is currently being held.
“That is now open to the public to enjoy and there are no fires up in the main corridor of Wells Gray Park,” Hanna added.
“Clearwater Lake is open for people to get up and enjoy. There are lots of areas that are now no longer impacted by fires. We’ve never had any of note in the main corridor, but we’re definitely open.”
The closest fire of note to Clearwater was the 23 sq. kilometre Dunn Creek fire in the Dunn Lake area, which is currently being held. All evacuation orders and alerts linked to that blaze have been lifted.