B.C. agreed to a co-management plan for Joffre Lakes Park with the First Nations in 2019.BC Parks
This weekend, one of the most picturesque parks in British Columbia is closed again, this time for two weeks.
Provincial parks staff will be stationed at the Joffre Lakes parking lot to redirect visitors to alternate locations, such as Nairn Falls, so that the local First Nations can use their traditional lands in the absence of hordes of day trippers visiting the park’s turquoise mountain waters.
The park is at the centre of a quiet battle over Indigenous rights and reconciliation, an exploding B.C. population eager to get into nature and a lack of clarity over the public’s right to access their parks.
The B.C. NDP government has not stood in the way of the closings by the Lil’wat and N’Quatqua First Nations, and has offered vague messages to the public about allowing Joffre Lakes to recover from overuse, although it has not studied whether the park is suffering.
The number of days that the First Nations intend to close the park to the public has increased since 2023.
“Community members are getting to utilize areas where they were previously removed or denied access,” the Lil’wat Nation said in a news release last month announcing the closing.
“This reconnection is integral to the well-being of the two Nations’ community members as they look for traditional methods to help cope with grief, addictions, suicide and mental health.”
No one from the Nation was available for an interview.
B.C.’s Joffre Lakes Park to have partial closure, allowing for conservation, tourism
Tamara Davidson, Minister of Environment and Parks, would not say if there is a limit to such public closures. “I think it’s really important that we respect that [the First Nations] also understand that when they have these temporary closures, when there aren’t a lot of visitors there at certain times of the year, it does really help the land to heal itself.”
Her response fits with the NDP government’s commitment to reconciliation with First Nations, but the province has struggled to communicate how it intends to balance that agenda against the broader public interest.
Last year, the B.C. government was forced to scrap amendments to the Land Act – changes that would have allowed joint decision-making with Indigenous communities about public land – after a backlash over its hasty public consultation process.
It also waited months to tell the public about an agreement that aims to settle Aboriginal title over an area that spans more than half a million hectares of the Sunshine Coast, and now faces a Constitutional challenge in the courts as a result.
Lawyer Robin Junger, who represents the Pender Harbour and Area Residents Association in that B.C. Supreme Court application, said the government is not legally obligated to close Joffre Lakes.
“They’re not required by virtue of Aboriginal rights. This is something the government is choosing to do, and it doesn’t have to,” he said. He said the Constitution Act imposes a duty to consult with First Nations on the Crown, “but it requires a balancing of interests.”
The province agreed to a co-management plan for Joffre Lakes with the First Nations in 2019. In 2023, the Nations began ad hoc closures of the park, known to them as Pipi7iyekw.
This year, the province announced a temporary closing of Joffre Lakes for 25 days in April and May, saying it was required to provide the local First Nations with the opportunity to reconnect with their land. After the two Nations declared they will close the park to the public for a total of more than 100 days during peak season, the province issued a second press release, this time saying the closings are being driven by public overuse.
Ms. Davidson said both reasons are true. Fewer visitors has been good for the park’s wildlife, she said, and the First Nations wanted access to a location that is important to their culture.
The parks ministry has a multitude of responsibilities, from protecting ecosystems, to mitigating against climate change, to providing outdoor recreation opportunities. The governing Park Act is silent on reconciliation, but it is part of Ms. Davidson’s mandate.
“It’s not about priorities, but more about balance. You have to find the right balance between each of them,” Ms. Davidson said.
B.C. cedes much of Nuchatlitz provincial park to Nuchatlaht First Nation
Achieving balance is only going to get more difficult as the parks system faces growing pressure. British Columbia’s population has grown by about 10 per cent since 2020. Most of that growth is concentrated in Metro Vancouver, but the region’s parkland has barely expanded – Garibaldi Provincial Park expanded by almost six hectares in 2021, and just 500 campsites have been added since 2017.
Visitors flock to Joffre Lakes, roughly 20 kilometres east of Pemberton, for its clear, turquoise lakes, surrounded by glacier-capped peaks – accessible as a day trip from Vancouver. Before the province brought in a day pass system, it was growing in popularity: Over 190,000 people visited the park in 2019 – a 222-per-cent increase since 2010. The province now limits visits to about 60,000 people annually.
It’s not just Joffre Lakes. Outdoor recreation use has skyrocketed all over the province. Fintry Provincial Park in the Okanagan had about 40,000 person-days of visits in 2019; last year it logged 205,000 daily visitors. On Vancouver Island, French Beach Provincial Park went from 30,000 to 130,000 annual visits in that same period.
In addition to population growth, the pandemic spurred an interest in local outdoor recreation. In 2020, the BC Parks Foundation launched the PaRx program to allow doctors to prescribe time in nature for their patients’ health. Since then, over 18,000 licensed health professionals across Canada have registered as PaRx prescribers, with more than 1.3 million nature prescriptions issued.
“We know that nature is really important to everyone. It’s good for our mental health, our physical health, our well-being, and for those of us that choose to hunt and fish, it’s how we fill our freezers,” said Jesse Zeman, executive director at B.C. Wildlife Federation.
Mr. Zeman says closing Joffre Lakes Park isn’t a long-term solution. “The problem is that we have a growing population in regions where parks get heavy use. We need to figure out ways to get people out and connecting with nature in a sustainable way. And one of those solutions is to create more parks where they’re needed.”
Ms. Davidson said B.C. is adding to the amount of parkland and protected areas in the province – 200,000 hectares since 2020. “That’s over 17 per cent bigger than the City of Vancouver,” she noted. But most of that is nowhere near Vancouver. The last big expansion of parkland was Klinse-za Park, located west of Chetwynd and Hudson’s Hope in northeastern B.C. It had about 5,000 daily visits last year.
Ms. Davidson said her ministry is working to expand opportunities for recreation in the most populated regions. “We’re going to be looking at all options at this point. We’re going to be looking at how we could expand different areas.”