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Parks for all | Easier access | Saving species at risk | Parks timeline | CG Archives

Easier access
All-terrain wheelchairs help make our parks available to everyone

Anyone who has watched the sun set on a tranquil lake in Kejimkujik’s quiet backcountry or strolled the wild beaches of Pacific Rim after a spring storm knows the priceless value of the opportunities to explore nature offered by our national parks. But while these lands are set aside for all of us to enjoy, the prospect of accessing these wild areas can be daunting for some Canadians with physical challenges. One thing that is helping people enjoy our beautiful parks is a little-known but greatly treasured item: the all-terrain wheelchair.

One place where the all-terrain wheelchair has been a big hit is at Bruce Peninsula National Park in Ontario. “We have people coming back year after year to enjoy the park with the all-terrain wheelchair,” said Cathryn Buckley, the park’s acting chief of operations.

Buckley described the wheelchair as a comfortable seat resting on a steel frame supported by three large, knobby wheels, with two under the seat and one under the legs. The wheelchair is not self-propelled and requires someone to push it from behind, but it does allow people to go further into our parks and access rougher terrain.

“We have to reduce as many barriers as we can so that Canadians, whether they’re able-bodied or not, can have some experience of our national parks and historic sites,” Buckley said. “This is one way we can break down the barriers for people who have physical disabilities.”

Joyce Balaz and her foster son Bill Hiltz couldn’t agree more. Camping was an important part of Balaz’s life growing up, and she wanted to be able to share the natural world with Hiltz, who has multiple physical challenges. “Bill has cerebral palsy affecting his right side, making his walking awkward and it takes a lot of effort for him to walk,” Balaz explained. “He has both a hearing impairment and a visual impairment such that neither can compensate for the loss of the other; therefore, he is considered deaf and blind. But his biggest challenge is that he has a very debilitating form of epilepsy which is resistant to medication therapy, and therefore is uncontrolled. Bill has seizures daily, and we never know when they will happen.” Though he is not wheelchair-bound, he can only walk for short distances. Balaz wasn’t sure how she could get Bill out into the parks until she found out about the all-terrain wheelchairs.

“It’s been really, really beneficial,” said Balaz, who undertakes a six-hour drive to get Hiltz, 25, to Bruce Peninsula every spring for an outing. “When he gets to the park, his face just lights up. The all-terrain wheelchair can take him pretty far along the trails, where a normal wheelchair just wouldn’t do.”
Balaz said having the wheelchair also makes it easier to help Bill through his epileptic seizures while on the trail, as she can support him while he has a seizure in the chair, and he can then rest in it afterwards while continuing on the trail.

Pushing the wheelchair on the trails can be pretty demanding, but Balaz says your choice is either to do it or not see the sites. It can go on bark-covered paths, trails with rocks and tree roots, and even sandy beaches. “It makes getting down to the water’s edge a whole lot easier…. He can get out to the tidal pool area. If he had to walk that distance, he’d never make it.”

Another park that Balaz and Hiltz have been able to explore with the aid of the all-terrain wheelchair is Point Pelee National Park. Point Pelee, renowned for its fabulous bird watching, is open year-round, and the wheelchair there gets used about 20 times annually. And while the relatively flat park may seem quite easy to get around, Svenja Hansen says the wheelchair makes a big difference to visitors on the trails, boardwalks and sandy beach.

“With those big bubble tires, you don’t feel every bump like you would in a regular wheelchair,” said Hansen, the parks’ acting communications and marketing director. “It’s kind of like the difference between a mountain bike and a road racing bike. Where you feel every bump and lump in the road on a racing bike, a mountain bike gives you more comfort and traction.”

The $5,000 all-terrain wheelchairs are free to use and can help individuals with physical challenges such as cerebral palsy, heart conditions, walking difficulties or other mobility issues enjoy our parks and historic sites with greater ease. There are 27 of the wheelchairs spread across the country, from Pacific Rim National Park in British Columbia to the Louisbourg National Historic Site in Cape Breton. But even though there are regulars like Balaz and Hiltz who book the wheelchairs well in advance, the availability of the vehicles is not well known.

“It is not well publicized,” said Alexandre Ferland, a Parks Canada spokesperson. “It’s an area we hope to improve on.”

Ferland noted that the wheelchairs were first purchased and distributed in the early 1990s and reflect the agency’s commitment to increase accessibility that was growing at that time and is ongoing today.

In 1988, during the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons (1983-1992), an access strategy was written for Parks Canada. In fact, by law the government requires that all federal facilities are accessible to persons with disabilities. However, with only 27 all-terrain wheelchairs nation-wide, of course not all of our parks and national historic sites have them. This is complicated by the fact that the original manufacturer of the wheelchairs has gone out of business, though there are alternative products now available in the marketplace. But other measures are being taken to make our parks and historic sites more accessible.

Ferland explained that in some circumstances, the all-terrain wheelchairs would not be able to get into the rougher areas of many of our parks. As well, maintaining the historical integrity of some sites would not allow wheelchair access (e.g. Parks Canada cannot build an elevator in a historic fort). For these circumstances, Parks Canada has developed other accessibility initiatives.

“In those cases where accessibility is not possible, we offer a ‘representative trail’ where you see part of a park,” he said. “Or we have videos or slide shows, for example, if you cannot get to the second floor of a historic site.”

But Ferland is also very pleased with the all-terrain wheelchair program. “It’s a wonderful way to experience our parks. It opens up areas they wouldn’t otherwise be able to explore.”