By the time I was 12, my family and I could set up a campsite with as much efficiency as a military unit. This involved a slightly competitive effort in which my brothers would race to set up their tent while my sister and I did ours. Having the advantage of age, I'm pretty certain we always beat them, but it didn't stop us from enjoying the effort.
Once the tents were up, and my parents had laboriously hand-wound the lid off the tent trailer, the work would begin to set up the necessities: cooking area, clothes line tied between two trees, lantern ready for nightfall and, of course, the fire.
At this point, my siblings and I would trek off to the wood pile, banana boxes in hand. It took two of us to carry back a single box, stacked high with wood - only as much as we would need, mind you, and anything left would be stacked neatly at the campsite before we left for the next camper who came along.
It was "free" wood, in that it was made available to campers who were paying the campsite fee.
Most campgrounds in B.C. still have those old wood corrals, though they now stand empty or have been repurposed to hold recycling bins and no one under the age of about 25 would have any idea what they were originally built for.
Every time I drive by one, I can feel that banana box in my hand, my siblings and I giddy with the joy of being outside, tents ready for sleeping.
Last summer, I spent more $30 on several bundles of wood over a two night camping excursion. And by bundles, I mean "a few decently sized chunks, mixed with some kindling, hopefully not too wet" that got us through a round or two of roasting marshmallows and provided a bit of light after dark till we gave up and simply lit a lantern.
That was on top of the campsite fee. Oh, and the reservation fee - which sounds like something that would be a single fee but is, in fact, a fee applied to each night of reservation. If you want to book Campsite A at Provincial Park B, you will pay the campsite fee (let's say $15 a night, which is actually on the very modest end), plus $6 per night for the reservation fee (up to a maximum of $18 - so if you're booking for more than three nights, I guess you "save" some money on that.)
One time I had to make a change to my reservation and phoned the call centre as I was having trouble with the website: after discussing the problem with the person on the other end (who I have to say was very helpful and informative) I was told that there was going to be a charge for changing the reservation. I sighed inwardly but, hey, the fault was mine and it needed to be done. But then the kicker: if the change was done on the phone call we were already on, it would cost me about double if I did it through the website. I was already on the phone, had already explained the problem, and my reservation was up on the screen in front of the person helping me. But I was going to pay about $10 to change the reservation through her, and only $5-ish if I hung up, got onto the website, spent another 20 minutes navigating the system and did it myself.
And did I mention that if you have the stupidity to require two cars (as we often do when camping with friends or extended family on a shared campsite) you'll pay extra for "parking" that second vehicle. On your campsite, not in a secondary lot.
As a B.C. resident for the bulk of my life, and a reporter who got her start in the early days of the post-2001 Liberal landslide, you'd think I'd be unflappable now when it comes to decisions out of Victoria.
But my mouth dropped at this week's news of campsite fee increases. Actually, if I'm being honest, my stomach knotted up: it's a kick to the gut to discover that one more thing that you want desperately to give your kids may be slipping through your fingers.
I get it: the halcyon days of affordability are gone. Trust me, I live that reality every single day. I live in the metro Vancouver area (albeit in a wildly more affordable area than Vancouver itself would be), I have two kids, my electric and gas and property tax and telecommunications bills seem to sneak up by inches every single year. We are a (mostly) one income family. Inflation is nipping at our heels.
And I realize that the costs that affect me on an individual level affect the government coffers on a provincial level - it costs more to heat school buildings than it did 20 years ago, it costs more to pave roads, it costs more to do everything.
I get it, I really do.
But I could barely afford the camping trips we did last year. I spent more than $100 in reservation and fees and extra-car charges before I'd even packed a single bag. Before I put gas in the car, bought hot dogs and marshmallows, purchased necessary gear for my kids, bought wood.
When I was young, I saw most of B.C., and every province between here and the Atlantic. I camped through Arizona, California, South Dakota, Utah. I camped on P.E.I. and in Nova Scotia. I felt the wind blow through giant redwoods, and over deserts, and walked through forests dripping with moss. I stood in waterfalls still frigid from the glacier masses they'd melted from, wandered historic forts, stared in awe at Mount Rushmore, and touched dinosaur bones in Alberta. I looked down at Plymouth Rock, saw mirages that looked like lakes. I stepped out of a tent onto gravel and walked fifteen minutes through winding paths and over sand dunes to watch the roar of waves crash down on the Oregon coast, knowing that the water that came tickling at my toes had once kissed the coast of Asia or of Australia.
Camping made this possible. Affordable camping made this possible.
My kids will be lucky if we get to Squamish or Golden Ears this year.
According to the press release, the increases will generate $1.3 million in additional revenues, all of which will be reinvested in the park system.
I suppose I should give kudos to the government for finding a way to continue to support the parks system from within the system itself. It costs money to make wild spaces available to the public, to preserve what we have, and to make sure it still exists for future generations.
But surely there's a better way than nickel-and-diming families that are already on the knife edge.
I have no doubt the parks will stay busy and those long weekends will see every campsite full. Most people will absorb the new fee. Others will simply begin to opt out. And a generation of kids that need to stand in waterfalls from glaciers and go to historic forts and smell pine trees and have their toes kissed by water from the other side of the planet will instead stay home.
In a world increasingly concerned about our disconnection from the very planet on which we exist, I'd say that qualifies as a tragedy.
Christina Myers is a freelance writer and a former Burnaby NOW reporter.
