It takes a community: the park ranger
Destination BC | Andrew Strain photo
As pressure builds on protected spaces the demands of the job increase.
In a time when trails, roads, campgrounds, rivers and lakes are busier than ever, it’s important to remember that it takes a community to make fun possible. This story is part of a series of profiles on the people who work behind the scenes in BC, so you can have that special moment today.
The ability to swim like a seal does the rhinoceros auklets no favours in the air. The medium sized diving birds are not great flyers. Landing is even worse.
One of the largest rhinoceros auklet breeding colonies in North America is on the Lucy Islands, off the coast of Prince Rupert. During the summer, thousands of pairs lay their eggs and raise their chicks in ground burrows on the archipelago. The adults spend their days fishing in the rich marine waters nearby and just before dark return to the islands in a unique spectacle that speaks to the tradeoffs natural selection requires.
“They crash ashore,” says Scott Donker, an area supervisor for BC Parks on the north coast. “They smash into tents and trees. They’re not graceful at all.”
Lucky for the auklets, ecological value is not a judged sport. The importance of the islands to seabird nesting, combined with significant First Nations history and the presence of a century old lighthouse station, prompted the provincial government in 2008 to create the Lucy Islands Conservancy. It’s one of 32 parks and protected areas within Donker’s area of management responsibility and one of the 1,037 parks, conservancies, protected areas and ecological reserves within the BC Parks system.
Each protected area is unique. Some focus more on recreational values, others on conservation, and most are somewhere in between. Finding and maintaining the right balance between the two is the job of park rangers and supervisors, like Donker. As park visitation has surged in recent years, their job has become more challenging. What hasn’t changed is the diversity.
“The exciting part of the job is that there are no typical days,” says Donker, who has worked with BC Parks for seven years, including five around Vancouver and two in the Prince Rupert area. “And even when you think you know what you’re going to be doing, plans often change rapidly.”
The primary tasks are maintenance of park facilities and trails, wildlife management, consulting with Indigenous Nations whose traditional territories the parks are situated on, and communicating with stakeholders, like businesses that operate in a park. Donker and other staff also conduct public outreach and education to preserve park values. And there are emergencies to plan for and respond to, wildlife-human conflicts to manage, and plenty of paperwork to tackle.
The split amongst tasks varies widely and is often tied to geography. For instance, rangers in the southern half of the province, where park visitation is exploding, spend more time on public outreach, says Donker. In remote locations, park rangers might be working with wildlife researchers or coordinating a wildfire response.
“But no matter where you are in the province you will be cleaning toilets,” Donker laughs.
Since he started with BC Parks, he’s noticed that he spends more and more of his time building relationships and actively engaged in reconciliations with Indigenous peoples. Many of the parks along the north coast hold significance to First Nations in the area and Donker is working with many groups on better representing the past and integrating the Nations into park management and decision making.
A less positive trend is managing the influence of the Internet.
“The power of social media to drive traffic to a place is amazing,” he says.
The quest to re-create spectacular Instagram photos or capture new ones often sends inexperienced people into dangerous positions. And the increased traffic is having a negative impact on park infrastructure and the overall visitor experience.
A notable example is the turquoise-coloured water of Joffre Lakes north of Whistler, where the overflowing parking lot, outhouse and trail have garnered a lot of publicity and subsequent restrictions. But it’s also true in remote places like the boat access-only Khutzeymateen/K’tzim-a-deen Provincial Park on the border of Alaska.
“You can’t go in there without a guide, but we’re finding people walking around the grizzly sanctuary on their own,” Donker says. “It’s a significant safety issue.”
Add the burden of more unexpected situations, like extreme weather events and forest fires, and rangers are busier than ever. Since 2018, the Province has invested in additional park ranger positions and the Student Ranger Program injects extra hands into the busy summer season. The students do a lot of public outreach work in southern parks, while in Donker's area they help with wolf studies and beach clean ups. But even with that extra help, the growing interest in parks creates more demands and the extra boots on trails increases the maintenance load.
“Overall it’s great that people are using the park system,” says Donker. “But as the parks get busier it is really important to be respectful and responsible.”
That means acknowledging that your actions can impact the experience of others and acting accordingly, accepting that other cultures might use a park in a different way than you, and remembering that parks welcome everyone.
“The pressure on the park system is only going to increase,” Donker says. “The more visitors who understand and follow the rules and take responsibility for their own safety, the better able we are to take care of the parks.”
Get more information about responsible recreation in BC Parks here.
Ryan Stuart started writing about his adventures as a way to get paid to play. Twenty years later he’s still at it. Look for his name in magazines like Outside, Men’s Journal, Ski Canada, online at Hakai and The Narwhal. When he’s not typing at his home office in Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley, you can find him skiing, hiking, mountain biking, surfing, paddling or fishing somewhere nearby.
