The Happy Camper: The Good, the Bad and the New at Ontario Parks in 2026
The summer camping season is getting close to wrapping up. Tent campers and RV lovers have endured it all once again in Ontario Parks, from continued booking reservation nightmares to horror stories of obnoxious behaviour throughout the campgrounds.
Campfire wood still seems to be soaked in a bucket of water before you pay more than a rib-eye steak for a bundle at the grocery store. Beyond that you have the “beer on the beach” program introduced by the Ontario government, which now makes it legal to drink alcohol off your campsite. And then there’s the closure of prominent gatehouses in well-known parks due to the parks favouring the online system, in my opinion, rather than a uniformed youth greeting you at the entrance.
Campers who begged for additional campsites got them in 2026, but most were electrical, delayed in construction or ended up being, in my opinion, unattractive spots in the bush cleared out to try and fit a massive trailer with air conditioning and a satellite system rather than a tiny tent and tarp.
But there were some positive highlights, too.
Bon Echo is extending their season to December 2026 and inviting campers to experience their cabins but also pitch their hot tents and wood stoves. That is very cool and something I will definitely be doing this late season.
Ontario Parks has also been doing some amazing social media posts with a weekly “Meet the Staff” as well as some unique interpretive clips. It brings me back to the days of Lloyd Walton’s Crickets Make Me Nervous film to promote camping etiquette. I’ve been told by some park staff that the social media clips have been some of their most popular content of the summer. That’s really good news!
Elora Gorge Conservation Area has also banned alcohol and cannabis. It’s a government run campground, not part of Ontario Parks. So why did they do such a radical thing? They’ve stated that the campground and day-use area had turned into a “party park” and created a very dangerous place to be while inebriated.
So why am I mentioning the Conservation Area campground news in this Ontario Parks’ article? Because a lot of campers are flocking to the Elora Gorge campground due to the ban; they’ve simply had enough with Ontario Parks’ “beer on the beach” that was initiate by Todd McCarthy, Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.
Others disagree… but by reading the comments, I’m more in tune with the change that has been made, even though I love a wee dram of whisky by the fireside at night.
One of the biggest announcements for Ontario Parks, and oddly one of the most debatable one on social media, is for southwestern Ontario’s Pinery Provincial Park to eliminate a good number of already existing campsites. Many social media pages claim the number of sites at over 300 but the Ontario Parks’ website has the number at 52 sites to date, and according to Dave Hunt, a spokesperson from Ontario Parks, work is underway to relocate a portion of the impacted sites to other development zones within the park.
So why eliminate campsites, which are part of the Burley Campground section of Pinery, when campsites across the province are clearly in great demand by campers? The main reasoning is to restore and enhance the natural environment, especially the rare oak savanna habitat that’s situated at the Burley cluster.
Some campers are rejoicing Ontario Parks’ decision to close the sites, especially since Pinery is classed as a natural environment-class park. This classification does a balancing act between conservation and recreation, “preserving ecologically significant landscapes while allowing for outdoor activities.” Whereas a recreational park classification is “designed for high visitor use, offering extensive facilities and activities.”
There’s a big difference between the two.
At Pinery, nature comes first. Its main goal is to foster natural environments and to educate the users about the importance of doing so. However, some—and I’ve sadly got to say the majority—are up in arms about taking away a place to park their RVs.
To quote Kathleen Holland, a former Park Warden and Park Naturalist from Pinery, and now the YouTube and Rogers TV celeb Hiking with Kathleen, “It’s important to bring balance to this storyline. This restorative work could become one of the greatest success stories of how reducing the ongoing damage to this rare ecosystem in Pinery will benefit not only the flora and fauna that depend on it but also Pinery Provincial Park users for years to come.”
This recent issue, amongst all the others happening in the 2026 camping season in Ontario, is getting most of the traction right now; and it’s igniting a major debate about the importance of environmental preservation goals versus public recreational access.
Ontario Parks is trying to protect this unique chunk of flora and fauna, full of rare savanna endangered species, squeezed in some semi-wild area. It’s like an island of green floating in an ocean of development that doesn’t have a chance in hell of surviving a self-interest society.
There’s no question that a sensitive dune habitat should be protected. No issue here.
But my main reason for writing this is to wake up the purists—once again—and see what most campers are saying. It will scar the tanned camp pants off of you.
Like I’ve said before—after interviewing a number of hermits living in the north, I asked them a question: what will be the demise of the human species? All of them said that it will be self-interest.
Good luck to us all…
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