Free Parks Canada passes a good deal for nearby business
Not just the tides, but also visitor numbers, are high at Fundy National Park this summer.
In celebration of Canada 150, all Canadian national parks offer free entry passes this year.
As a result, the parks report a 30 per cent increase in visitors, and it's not just the parks that benefit but also the surrounding communities.
"It's got to be one of the very busiest summers that we've had," said Gail Walker, a life-long resident of Alma, a small village inside Fundy park.
Business keeping busy
Business owners are running off their feet this year.
Joel Cadieux, owner and chef of An Octopus' Garden Cafe, said he's so busy, he hardly gets much time off anymore.
"I'm usually over here morning, noon and night," he said.
"We are trying to manage, it's a whole new experience now, we have a lot more visitors than we ever have in the past."
Cadieux said his parking lot is always full, but there's a lack of available spots all over the village.
While he thinks visitor numbers have increased steadily in recent year, this year is especially busy, he said.
He's already planning ahead for next year, considering to hire more staff to keep things going at the café.
But more visitors is also good news for Alma, he said.
"All this is doing is advertising the village some more," he said. "So if anything, I think it might bring more people next year."
Crowded parking lots
Staff at Fundy National Park also hope visitors will plan a return visit next year.
In anticipation of high visitor numbers this year, they had already started preparing in the winter, said Andrew Fry, manager of visitor experience.
"Probably the main things we did to prepare is we brought on extra staff for cleaning, maintenance, visitor centres," he said.
"And we also brought on extra staff to deal with spots we thought would be busier this summer."
So far, everything went as expected, Fry said, with full campgrounds on weekends and busy trails and day-use areas.
The main pressure is on parking, though.
Staff were working this week to add a few additional parking spaces and improve signage at the Laverty Falls parking lot, near a popular waterfalls trail.
"Just to help traffic and people move more safely," he said.
Trails not too busy
Fry added that it's rare for park staff to restrict access to an area and the trails were not too busy yet.
"It takes a lot of people to fill up six kilometres of trail," he said.
"You would almost never find issues where you have visitation pressures on trails expect for the very shortest of trails."
The park also recently reopened a new trail section at Pointe Wolfe.
While he won't know the total number of visitors to the park until the end of the year, he said "it's a big year" and hopes the next one will be, too.
"And I think because we got out in front of this ... it's been a great summer for us in Fundy," he said.
