Paddlers Beware: New Parks Canada Rules Restrict Paddling on Rivers and Lakes in the Rockies
On March 10, Parks Canada announced what it calls the Mountain National Parks Aquatic Invasive Species Prevention Strategy. This new program extends existing closures on waterways in Kootenay and Yoho National Parks through 2027 and brings a suite of new regulations to Banff, Jasper and Waterton Lakes. While Parks Canada staff say these new rules are needed to curb the spread of invasive species, paddlers are worried about how they’ll impact outdoor recreation.
How Will This News Impact Canadian Paddlers?
Mike Holroyd grew up in an old Banff National Park warden cabin at the bottom of the Cascade Fire Road. It was a short walk from his front door to the Cascade River, a roiling stretch of whitewater described as a “perfect Class 3 River, loved by many Bow Valley paddlers” in an online guidebook.
“That Cascade run is special to me,” Holroyd, who now serves as the executive director of Alberta Whitewater, says. “My kids are just old enough that we were hoping to get on the Cascade this year, and then all of this came through.”
“This” is a sweeping new aquatic invasive species policy in Banff, Jasper, Yoho, Kootenay and Waterton Lakes National Parks. Details vary from park to park, but according to Holroyd, “if everything stays as it is, it would be pretty terrible for paddling in the Rockies.”
“A lot of the main rivers in Banff are closed, the Cascade, the Pipestone, the Mistaya and others,” he explains. “Some of the bigger lakes like Moraine and Minnewanka, too.”
And that’s just the front-country. The measures also close backcountry rivers and lakes that are popular with packrafters and stand-up paddleboarders who hike in to paddle them.
Karling Roberts, the Aquatic Invasive Species project lead in Banff National Park understands that the new rules will impact paddlers, but she says they are necessary to curb the spread of aquatic invasive species.
“Aquatic invasive species are a threat to Western Canada, and that threat grows year over year,” she explains. “As harmful aquatic invasive species like zebra mussels, quagga mussels and golden mussels pop up in new places in the west every year, the risk of a watercraft or piece of equipment coming directly from one of those locations into one of the Mountain National Parks and spreading those species also grows every single year.”
Understanding the New Rules
In Kootenay and Yoho, the new measures extend closures on all bodies of water that have been in place since 2023. In Waterton, Banff and Jasper, Parks Canada split rivers and lakes into three new designations: Water Recreation Zones, Water Preservation Zones and Special Tactics Zones.
Recreation Zones allow paddling to continue as it did prior to these new rules as long as paddlers continue to fill out self-certification permits and clean, drain and dry their craft before using them in the parks. In Banff, this includes several lakes and the Bow River. In Jasper, more rivers are open, including parts of the Athabasca and Sunwapta rivers used by commercial rafting companies.
Preservation Zones are considered high risk. Rivers and lakes in these zones are closed to paddling but open to swimming and other activities deemed lower risk by Parks Canada.
Special Tactics Zones are somewhere between the other two, with rules that vary from park to park. In Banff, for example, Lake Minnewanka allows motorized boating but not paddling. In Waterton Lakes, the same designation allows all paddling, but only in boats that remain within the park year-round.
Roberts says these differences are evidence-based decisions based on data Parks Canada has been collecting since 2017.
“When people come into the park to do non-motorized forms of recreation, they fill out a paper permit [with] what equipment they’re using and where they’re going,” she says. “In Banff, we receive over 14,000 of these permits every year. It’s a huge data set, and it gives us a lot of insight into what visitors are doing on the water”.
That data, Roberts explains, was used to determine recreation use and compare it with ecological factors such as critical trout habitat, endangered aquatic species and spawning regions. That was used, she says, to decide which “water bodies are in the recreation zone versus which ones ended up in the preservation zone.”
But Holroyd wants a more thorough explanation. He says that Alberta Whitewater shares Parks Canada’s concerns about invasive species, but questions the evidence for restricting kayaks, canoes, paddleboards and packrafts.
“The first whirling disease in Banff was attributed to fish hatcheries and had nothing to do with recreational paddlers,” he explains. “A sailboat that sits in the water can pick up mussels, but that’s not the case for small craft…where’s the proof that it’s actually being transmitted by recreational use?”
Roberts admits that “the risk of an individual piece of equipment or watercraft carrying AIS is low,” but explains that in national parks, the sheer number of users amplifies that risk.
“When you multiply that by the tens of thousands of users that we see, then the risk becomes elevated,” she says.
Holroyd questions how some decisions were made. “Waterfowl Lake is open, but the Mistaya River is closed,” he explains. “The Mistaya flows out of Waterfowl Lake, so that just doesn’t make any sense.”
Roberts says that she wasn’t involved directly in that decision; it’s in a different field unit in Banff than where she works but thinks it’s because “permit data would have shown that Waterfowl Lake gets a lot of use and is therefore extremely recreationally valuable. They didn’t see those numbers for the Mistaya River.”
How These Closures Impact Local Businesses and Recreational Groups
Simon Coward shares Holroyd’s concerns. But as the owner of AQ Outdoors, a paddling school, guide service and Alberta’s largest paddling shop, he’s also worried about how it will impact his business.
“[The new rules] limit our capacity to utilize the Kootenay River, which is a multi-day trip we offer in the late summer,” he says. It also restricts access to Lake Minnewanka and Two Jack Lake, two popular flatwater paddling routes they run.
Coward says it’s been particularly challenging because of how things rolled out.
“We heard the news in an email from Parks Canada a few days ago,” he says. It has him feeling like Parks Canada is “putting blanket restrictions without any real thought to the downstream effect of their actions on businesses and recreationalists.”
Nick Gottlieb, vice-president of BC Whitewater, had a similar experience in 2023 when the Kootenay River was first closed.
“A member of our board reached out to Parks Canada to establish a relationship as a stakeholder group,” he explains. They were invited to a meeting, but Gottlieb says they “haven’t had much luck” in following up.
Holroyd also only heard from Parks Canada after the new rules were announced. At an online town hall meeting on March 10, David Argument, the Resource Conservation Manager for Jasper National Park, said the only groups they had spoken to were whitewater rafting companies in Jasper.
Paddlers Push for Alternative Strategies to Manage Invasive Species
Paddling groups tell me that they are frustrated. Coward, Holroyd and Gottlieb all believe that the majority of paddlers share Parks Canada’s concerns about invasive species. But, they say, these new rules feel like using a sledgehammer where a scalpel would work.
“We recognize that river access and invasive species management can sometimes come into conflict,” says Gottlieb. “But we also know there are solutions other than just closing everything.”
Solutions like installing boat-washing stations, similar to the one that Parks Canada and the Alberta Invasive Species Council installed at a boat launch in Elk Island National Park last year. Or more rigorous permitting to ensure crafts are being cleaned properly, rivers are being used appropriately, and to educate the wider paddling public. Holroyd also thinks that enforcement would help.
“At Johnston Canyon, [Parks Canada] blocked people from going off the trail and gave a $25,000 fine,” he says. “That gets people’s attention, and they’re much more likely to comply.”
Roberts says Parks Canada considered these options but decided the new strategy was its best option. Part of the challenge was funding.
“Cost and resourcing are always a huge challenge,” she explains. “On the flip side, an even greater cost and resource challenge is eradication or managing aquatic invasive species once you have one.”
Those challenges could be exacerbated by promised cuts to Parks Canada’s budget and workforce, as well as the government’s decision not to collect park fees for at least another year with the extension of the Canada Strong Pass.
Still, Gotlieb thinks it’s important to raise questions now. He points to what happened to paddlers in Yellowstone National Park, where waterways were closed in 1950 and never reopened, as a worst-case scenario. Holroyd agrees, explaining that “once these policies are in place, they’re next to impossible to overturn.”
The good news, Holroyd says, is that paddlers have been speaking up and Parks Canada staff have agreed to meet with Alberta Whitewater and other paddling groups.
“They have opened the door,” he says. “I guess I’m an eternal optimist, but I can also be realistic, understanding the past history of these kinds of things.”
What about having rental equipment at each of these restricted entry sites for use within this location only? That way each craft could also be tracked. Each craft could also be brightly tagged to identify which locations it can be used in.