Priced Out of the Wild: How BC Parks’ New Fees Are Reshaping Summer Camping
For the first time in 15 years, Michelle Jensen and her family won’t be going on a summer camping trip in British Columbia.
“Our family and four others decided to change our annual plans,” Jensen, an Alberta resident, said. “It wasn’t just the out-of-province fee, but that the site we stayed at went up almost $20 per night. In combination with the cost of gas, it just seemed better to stay in our own neck of the woods.”
Earlier this year, BC Parks announced that campground fees at 59 “high-use parks” would go up starting on June 15. They also introduced a “non-resident surcharge” that takes effect on May 15 and adds $20 to every booking.
According to the province, the increases are necessary to keep up with rising park operations costs.
“[Parks] have seen challenges, from extreme weather impacts to significant increases in visitors,” said Tamara Davidson, Minister of Environment and Parks, when the new fees were announced. “By renewing the parks and recreation system, we are creating a more sustainable operating model that strengthens stewardship and long-term protections of the natural spaces people cherish.”
She added that this is the first fee increase in a decade. Still, the cost increases are a hard pill to swallow for some. Especially Albertans who, like Jensen, have made camping in BC a summer tradition.
“My wife and I love the BC outdoors, who doesn’t?” Said Kevin Frillman, one of nearly 200,000 members of the Facebook group Alberta Camping. “But now BC is getting greedy.”
It’s a sentiment shared by a number of Albertans who I interviewed. Some are planning to stay in Alberta, others are planning to visit national parks, where the Canada Strong Pass offers free or discounted access. Some have made plans to travel east to Saskatchewan. But others, like Sheryl Elaine, are swallowing the fees.
Elaine said that she understands the need for new fees “to a point,” but takes issue with the non-resident fee.
“Let Canadians all camp for the same fee and charge the out-of-Canada visitors more,” she explained. “All these other countries have a dollar way more powerful than ours and come here and use the parks at very little cost when our own Canadian residents can’t afford to do so.”
Park Bookings Unaffected by New Fees
Despite these misgivings, the new fees don’t appear to be driving down summer campground reservations at BC Parks.
“Camping reservation numbers at this time indicate no noticeable impact of fee changes on people’s plans,” BC’s Ministry of Environment and Parks explained in a statement to explore.
That should be good news for park budgets, but some question whether that money will actually find its way back into trails and campgrounds.
“I wonder if this increase in camping fees and park tenure fees will continue to go to general revenue,” asked Chris Ludwig, a longtime trail builder and vice-president of the BC Mountaineering Club. “Or will these monies be directed towards park recreation facilities?”
BC Parks hasn’t provided numbers for how much revenue the new fees are expected to generate, but with fee increases and more park users, it’s likely significant. In 2016/17, the last time BC Parks released financials, recreation fees brought in more than $24 million dollars.
But while that may seem like a lot of money, the costs of maintaining the parks are even higher.
Back in 2015, the last time the province increased camping fees, the government estimated that they had “approximately $700 million of investment in infrastructure that requires maintenance.”
It’s not clear how much of that remains, but the ministry claims to have spent “approximately $200 million in campground expansions, accessibility upgrades and improvements to trails, parking and facilities” since 2017.
Public Parks or Private Interests?
BC’s first agreement with a private park operator was signed in 1983. Today, private operators are the standard, with more than 250 across the province.
“Camping fees support the delivery of in-park visitor services, the majority of these services are provided by park operators,” the ministry explained. “In 2026, approximately 80 percent of all costs for these services are funded by camping fees, including the non-resident fee.”
The remaining 20 percent is paid by the province. The ministry didn’t say how much that is, but in 2012, the last time data was published, the province paid private operators $3.7 million of what it called “deficiency payments.”
And park operators aren’t the only private companies in the mix. In 2022, BC signed an agreement with the technology company Camis to design and operate a new park reservation platform.
The province paid a $200,000 “one-time fee for configuring and deploying the BC Parks Camping Reservation.” After that, they agreed to pay Camis every time someone makes, changes or cancels a booking.
When a copy of the contract was released under a Freedom of Information Act request in 2023, the fee payments to Camis were redacted. Disclosing it, the province determined, would be “harmful to the business interests of a third party.”
Camis doesn’t disclose any financials either, but a post on their website says that they “processed over 322,000 reservations” in one year. With BC Parks’ $5-per-person reservation fee, that’s at least $1.6 million.
When asked how that money was split between Camis and the province, the ministry responded that “reservations fees cover the cost of administering the reservation system, currently run by Camis.”
So, while it’s clear that more people and higher fees will increase the overall revenue generated by BC’s provincial parks, where that money goes is still somewhat unclear. Chris Ludwig worries that without clarity on this, money might not end up where it’s most needed and will “represent absolutely no value to the park user.”
The province is adamant that isn’t the case, pointing to recent costly repairs on the Berg Lake Trail, at Othello Tunnels and along the Juan de Fuca Trail. They’re also clear that the fee increases are here to stay.
“We want to keep costs more affordable for BC residents, so people living outside of BC will pay more to reflect the higher impact of increased tourism in popular destinations,” the ministry explained.
