A Love Letter to the Park Patch
After my first Girl Guides camping trip, I came home with three things. The first was the knowledge that I could turn an empty apple juice tin into a stove if push came to shove (thankfully, it never has). The second was an addiction to s’mores. And the third was two embroidered souvenir patches.
Whether you call them patches, badges or crests, these small, embroidered keepsakes are beloved by campers, especially those who frequent national, state and provincial parks. In terms of practicality, they’re hard to beat. They’re lightweight and affordable. It’s unthinkable for me to visit a National Park without bringing one home. In a pinch, I’ll opt for a magnet. I still have the faded roadrunner-themed magnet from Death Valley National Park, the first I visited with my spouse, stuck to the side of my stove. However fun they are, there’s something about these collectables that says, “I was here and it mattered.”
Sangeeta Patel, a Toronto-area journalist, traces her patch collection to a childhood camping trip. She participated in a Scouts Canada jamboree, where collecting and trading were in full swing.
Patel recalls, “The idea that you could get a very specific, a very rare badge, and it would be a story that you could tell that… is how I got on the badge collection train.” As an adult, Patel was initially drawn to scratch-off maps as a way to mark her travels, but that changed. “We were in the park store, and I realized that there’s patches,” she remembers, adding, “I want to do that version of it, because that connects back to my history of camping, and I really like the personalized artwork of each park.”
The earliest patches came from rangers and wardens, who wore them on their uniforms. In the United States, the Junior Ranger educational programs, which started in the 1930s, are often credited with spreading a zeal for badge acquisition among children. Meanwhile, in Canada, in the 1920s and 1930s, Parks Canada issued decorative stamped-metal vehicle passes. These were discontinued in the 1940s to conserve metal for wartime manufacturing. Post World War II, when recreational travel became popular, the fabric badge once again came into vogue.
Jami Savage was also introduced to collecting at a young age thanks to Brownies and Guides. Her hobby became, in her words, an obsession, while attending Hands Across the Border, an event held at Peace Arch Park in Surrey, BC, where Girl Guides and Scouts from across Canada and the U.S. gather to trade crafts and badges. She keeps her badges from that experience, all that followed and even ones her mother collected on a special blanket, a beloved heirloom she describes as a visual record of her life’s story.
Looking back on a lifetime of collecting, she shares: “A badge is small, meaningful and incredibly versatile—you can put it on a backpack, a suitcase, a jacket or, like me, a blanket you’ll keep for the rest of your life.”
Creative projects, like blanket making, are a big part of collecting patches. Dave Hunt with Ontario Parks told me: “Some creative Ontario Parks visitors have sewn their park patches onto jean jackets, and we’ve seen blankets, quilts, pillows and ponchos covered in Ontario Parks patches as well. Other visitors have turned their patches into removable Velcro “stick on” patches they can put almost anywhere, and others have glued their patches onto magnets to put on their fridges.”
Heather Shanholtzer, a freelance copywriter from St. Johns, Florida, also commemorates her trips in a visible way. She puts her patches on an orange JanSport backpack that dates to the 1990s. She admits that, as a backpack, it’s rather lacking. However, “it’s been on all of my trips with me, so it just seems fitting that I put the patches on there.”
She also notes that, in addition to making her happy, it gives people behind her in airport security lines something cool to look at. I think she’s onto something, as I would 100 percent strike up a conversation with any patcher I spotted in the “wild.”
Shanholtzer is passing on the tradition of memory-making in a novel way to her children. “I’m making each of my daughters a “travel blanket,” crocheted from yarn colours inspired by the trips we take… After each trip, I add a stripe to each of their blankets…I’m going to give them their blankets on their 18th birthdays, so they can begin their adult journey with a cozy reminder of home and the adventures we’ve had.”
For Sara McConnell, collecting patches is a gateway to creating memories with her children. The self-described parent of teens, herder of pets, photographer and public servant from Ottawa got a camper trailer in 2018. She shares: “It’s been a great way to deliberately seek out new places and adventures, because we always looked to add a badge to our collection!”
Her family first collected bumper stickers. That proved tricky for several reasons, so when Ontario Parks introduced new park crests in 2019, they made the shift. “It means our teens are still invested in adding to our collection. I hope it’s given them an appreciation for a tangible way to collect memories and mementos, that isn’t just cell phone photos.”
Will collecting patches retain a steady interest? The team at Parks Canada certainly thinks so. They told me: “Year after year, collectibles—including personalized crests—remain among the top-selling items in Parks Canada gift shops. Visitors are looking for souvenirs that reflect their memorable experiences in Parks Canada administered places.”
McConnell compares collecting patches to “the adult equivalent to collecting rocks, shells and sticks on nature outings,” and I think she’s onto something. As adults who love nature, we know to leave nothing but footprints and take nothing but photos and memories. Perhaps patches are the next best thing: minimal, unobtrusive, but tangible enough to let us say, “I was there.”
