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travel / travel magazine / mar09
Notebook
Parks to play in
WHEN WE PUBLISHED our May 2008 issue on hot beaches, the response was a little surprising. “Two beaches
in the Yukon?!” cried one Whitehorse resident. Well, yes. The goal of that package — and the one in this issue,
on Canada’s most spectacular provincial and territorial parks — was to inspire you to see the country in new and unexpected ways.
Without the name recognition of, say, Banff or Jasper, provincial parks don’t always
get the respect they deserve, Mark Abley explains in his story on Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial
Wilderness Park in northern Saskatchewan. Truth is, our provincial and territorial parks
are some of our greatest treasures, and among our most bountiful natural resources. They
are the places so many of us spend our Sundays and our summers. They’re a spot to sit
and watch the water, roast marshmallows and fly kites.
Most of all, they’re cheap — if not free — vacations, and the hallmark
of many a family road trip. To hear my dad tell it, the best provincial park visits are the
ones befallen by minor calamities — Bronte Creek Provincial Park, west of Toronto,
where his 1972 Dodge Dart hit a snowbank, filling the engine compartment with snow. Port
Bruce Provincial Park, where our pop-up trailer got a flat tire and sank in the sand. And
Rondeau Provincial Park, where my mom nearly got swept into Lake Erie but thankfully only
lost her shoe.
Mom chimes in with her own memories. “Do you remember Ipperwash Provincial Park?” she
asks. My family visited this scenic spot on Lake Huron and splashed on its beach long before
it became the site of a brutal standoff in 1995 and decades before the land was returned
to members of the Stony Point First Nation, to whom it had historically belonged.
“That was a wonderful trip,” she says, lost in reverie. It’s a striking
reminder of the importance of these protected lands. They are sacred and special in so many
ways.
By Patricia D’Souza
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