As NWT residents get set for the warm summer months, the territorial government is asking campers to be mindful of the rules around selling camp site reservations.
The Northwest Territories Parks posted a notice to its Facebook page on June 18 expreessing concern over “an increase in the private exchange of campground reservations - on social media sites.
“NWT Parks would like to remind campers that any private transactions completed must be identified to the park contractor prior to the reservation date,” it states.
Drew Williams, spokesperson for the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment said since camping season started during the May-long weekend, people have posted camp reservations for sale on Facebook
Many of those listings can be found on the Yellowknife Campers public group.
“When you get to a campsite you get a permit when you get there and that is not exchangeable and that is under the Territorial Parks Act,” Williams explained.
“Folks are trading online at lot and sometimes with strangers and if you do that, we are good with it but for own protection just let our parks supervisor know.”
If a parks supervisor were to simply give a permit to a person who aren’t on the reservation, the original person could end up being liable for any damages or other problems that the new person could pose.
It’s also illegal to go to the site with a reservation claiming you are someone else.
NWT Parks is recommending people wanting to cancel a reservation to do so online so that a financial transaction can be obtained and the spot can be re-booked by someone else.
Williams said the department has seen more incidents of this situation this year as more people have been aiming to get outside.
“Obviously our parks are extremely busy with generally good weather but folks haven’t been out in a while and haven’t been on holiday,” he said.
“People are doing a lot of camping and everything is happening at a higher rate than normal.”
The department reported in a May 11 regular blog entry that demand for camping has increased sharply, similar to last year.
“By the end of the first week, 3,763 reservations had been booked – an increase of 15 per cent from last year’s record number of overnight stays by NWT residents,” Williams said.
“5,704 visits were made to the NWT Parks campground reservation portal generating more than 110,476 page views.”
Williams says that in a regular year, the last one being in 2019, NWT Parks see 35,249 overnight campers.
In 2020, there were 23,105 overnight campers, which represented a 46 per cent increase of NWT residents staying in parks over the 2019 season.
Use of NWT campgounds by territorial residents has increased 61 per cent since 2019.