As part of the province’s restart plan, provincial parks will start reopening for day trips as of the 14th.
On Wednesday, BC Premier John Horgan said “We are going to be opening provincial parks, most provincial parks for day use on the 14th of May before the long weekend. Our expectation is that the restart plan will kick in on the 19th of May which is the Tuesday after the long weekend.”
“We’ve resisted announcing this plan because often times that’s the trigger. People go ‘Oh good, Horgan just said it’s time to get back to normal.’ I’m not saying that. I’m saying we have a plan to move to what will be the new normal.”
Speaking on The Jeff Andreas Show, The Mayor of Clearwater is excited that Wells Gray Provincial Park can reopen for day trips soon.
Merlin Blackwell says everyone he knows has some form of cabin fever and is ready to head outside and it is welcome news that soon that will be allowed to some degree. “We really do need to get, even if we got a local regional tourism economy going again, it would be fantastic news for a lot of the operators here.”
Blackwell says hopefully there will be a rollover into overnight camping in the next little while and he says it is designed to abide by physical distancing rules. “Have a lot of space between camp sites usually and I don’t know about you, but pretty much everybody I know has cabin fever and really ironically wants to get out to the bush or the cabin to get away from the current stuck in your home kind of cabin fever, so I think it’s a great opportunity that that’s one of the first things that will start up again.”
Blackwell says one of the good things about this announcement is that the tourist season for Well Gray would have barely even started by this time anyways. “Wells Gray, fortunately our season really starts May 1st and it starts rather slowly because we’re snowed in.”
Blackwell reinforced the message from the Premier to not be travelling any distances to visit parks. He welcomes visitors but says it does remain important for people to stay close to home.
