Camping in Saskatchewan parks impacted by fires, heat

Camping season is upon us, as are nearly 130 active wildfires and a blistering heat wave.

All of that is causing some campers to stay home, and campsites to shut down.

“In a couple of our more northern parks, we have seen some cancellations,” Jennifer Johnson, the assistant deputy minister in the Parks Division of the Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport, said Thursday.

“There are fires near Meadow Lake Provincial Park and Lac La Ronge Provincial Park, and so we have actually proactively closed some of our more remote campgrounds that are even closer to the fires.

“(In) some of our other campgrounds that aren’t impacted by the fires directly but are impacted by the smoke, we’ve been seeing some campers choosing to cancel their reservations.”

The 2021 camping season has been busy, with an increase of roughly 40 per cent from 2019.

“We’ve been contacting any reservation holders directly for those (more remote parks),” Johnson said. “They’ve been very small reservation numbers.

“Most people prefer to cancel ahead of time because then they get more of their refund back.”

None of the fires are said to be directly affecting the campgrounds — yet.

“At this point, we don’t think that the fire is a direct threat to any of our park infrastructure or campgrounds,” Johnson said. “But the situation can change very easily and quickly with wind conditions, or with new fires starting up, so we just have to monitor the situation.

“Of course (the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency) leads that effort, but we’re monitoring in the parks themselves as well to see what’s potentially in danger or not. But at this point we don’t see anything directly impacted.”

Heat is also causing problems with the power capacity.

“During extremely hot weather, demand for power can exceed the electrical system capability of some of our campgrounds,” Johnson said. “So it can also exceed SaskPower’s local system capacity and that’s just because everyone’s running their air conditioning units 24/7 — and I don’t blame them!”

Campers can make small adjustments to help ensure there is enough power for everyone by setting their air conditioning a couple degrees higher than usual, turning it off completely when they are not in their camper, or switching their hot water heaters to run off propane instead of electricity.

“We just want to make sure everybody stays safe,” Johnson said. “Pay attention to both yourself and children or pets and try to stay cool, get into the lake as often as you can, seek out shade (and) make sure you’re staying hydrated.

“They’re basic tips, but you want to make sure that people remember to do it because it is a scorcher out there.”