Saskatchewan is starting to find its footing with the “new normal” as it continues the government’s reopening plan.
With the official start of summer set for June 20, people throughout the province are ready to return to some of their favourite warm weather activities while following the Covid-19 health and safety guidelines.
Camping is about as Canadian an activity as there is and the people of Saskatchewan certainly embrace their time away “roughing it.”
Although it won’t be the same as past years, provincial and regional parks in the province are starting to open.
As of June 1 all public and private campgrounds can open their overnight camping, but reservations must be made in advance and limited-term campsites can only be occupied at 50 per cent capacity with no adjacent sites being occupied.
Parks will not allow group camping or double site booking. All purchases within the park must be done through contactless methods. All parks have had to implement enhanced cleaning and disinfecting practices at dump stations, water stations, washroom facilities, and public/shared spaces like picnic tables.
Recreational facilities such as swimming pools, beaches, tennis courts, and playgrounds must stay closed.
Fishing and boating are permitted as long as proper physical distancing and safety guidelines are followed.
Moosomin Regional Park
Moosomin Regional Park has been open to the public for a couple weeks now and people are welcome to come take advantage of the parts of the park that are open, says Park Manager Wayne Beckett.
“We officially opened May 15 to seasonal campers and anybody who is booked for longer than a month,” said Beckett.
“The park is wide open as far as access,” he said.”The hiking trails are open for anybody. Everything is open as far as getting around, the trails and the streets.”
“The beach is closed to gatherings, but you can walk across it.”
As part of their preparation to open, Beckett says they put up signage all over the park to ensure visitors understand the Covid-19 health and safety guidelines and they’ve had to keep some areas closed.
“We’ve put up signs regarding Covid-19 regulations, the need for physical distancing, and gatherings being a maximum of 10 people,” he said.
“Washrooms are only open on the weekends because that’s when most of the campers are actually here, not so much through the week.”
“Showers, the laundry building, and playgrounds are all closed.”
It’s been a difficult adjustment with the limited number of campers allowed at the park at one time says Beckett.
“The new rule is, the people who are camping for less than a month need to have an empty site on either side of them,” he said. “That’s proving to be a challenge because many of our campsites were booked up in early March when we open up the booking season. Before the Covid-19 rules came in we were pretty close to full for the short-term and long-term. Now, with these 50 per cent rules coming in we’ve had to do some juggling of campers to try and accommodate that regulation.”
From Beckett’s perspective it’s not an ideal situation, but generally people are just happy that they can access the park and take advantage of the weather.
“Everybody has been pretty understanding,” he said. “It’s just nice to have the park open.”
Saskatchewan Provincial Parks
Dan French, the executive director of parks operations for the Ministry of Parks, Culture, and Sport says despite the changes, camping season is ready to go.
“We open Monday (June 1) for camping season, so our reservation season went quite well,” said French.
“We are only open at 50 per cent capacity until further notice. That’s going to be a big change, virtually every second campsite will be closed.”
“There will be limited services as well. Our showers, laundry facilities, and recreational facilities such as playgrounds, and beaches will remain closed until further notice.”
With parts of the parks closed for precautionary purposes, French says it might be a different experience, but at the end of the day people will still be able to camp.
“It will be different this year for sure,” he said.
“Most of our recreational facilities are closed. People will still be able to walk around, we’re certainly not saying they have to be confined to their space. But mostly the campsite is where people will be spending their time, around a fire.”
“Firewood will still be accessible which is obviously a very good thing for our campers. Also, new this year we’re introducing contactless programming. There will be some information on that posted throughout the sites where families can go out and grab these pre-packed packages of programming. Some are like puzzles, just kits for kids to keep them entertained because we realize with some of our facilities closed there needs to be options. They can take those back to their campsites and use them to stay entertained with their families. That’s going to be ongoing throughout the summer. We’re excited about that.”
Although reservations must be made online for camping, parks are still open for access to the public for day use.
“Not everything necessarily has to be done online,” he said. “Camping does. Certainly camping you want to do online and that’s our direction right now, but of course we are still open to the general public.”
“For day use if someone just wants to come for a trail walk or a bike ride or a walk around the lake they can still pay our entry fees and do that.”
“Camping specifically needs to be booked ahead of time, however for day use people can just show up.”
“Our QA’s are updated on saskparks.com daily and our Facebook page has tons of information that we’re sharing so people can stay up to date,” he said.
With the health and safety of parks staff and visitors being the top priority, the parks have specific protocols they’ll be following.
“We certainly have taken extra health and safety precautions,” he said. “We’ve enhanced our cleaning of our open facilities. Most of our washroom facilities will be open and accessible to the public. We’ve put in safety protocols in our campground offices and entry gates to ensure there’s as little contact as possible with our visitors.”
“We also introduced auto check-in this year, which is quite exciting,” he said. “If you have an annual pass and an online booking of your campsite then you can go directly straight to your campsite without stopping to speak to anybody, you’ll be automatically checked in.”
“That’s something that I think is going to be well received by the visitors. You need an annual pass for that and it’s usually hanging off your mirror and once we see that then you just get waved through and can head right to your campsite and enjoy your visit.”
Even though the changes do have an impact, French says for the most part the feeling is people are just excited that they can go camping.
“Generally we’ve had positive feedback,” he said. “There was some concern about the 50 per cent capacity for obvious reasons. We certainly understand that, but with the feedback we’re getting it’s evident the Saskatchewan residents are just itching to get out.”
“It’s going to be different, but yet I think it’s going to be well received and people are going to enjoy themselves and how can you complain when you’re sitting by the fire with your family and staring at the stars?”
“As everyone is saying, if we all follow the rules we’ll get through this and we’re no different. People just need to come prepared Bring your hand sanitizer, your snacks, your water and we still have some establishments open like food stores.”
“We’re ready to open. At the end of the day we have a safe environment and expect nothing, but success this summer.”
