A rink-size slab of limestone gently slopes into the waves of Sluice Box Rapids, atop Virginia Falls in the Northwest Territories. If you scramble down nearby gravel cliffs, following a faint trail through scrappy stands of black spruce and soapberry, you can tiptoe out to its slippery edge and trail your fingers in the surging froth. At your feet, the entire Nahanni River plunges into the abyss of Fourth Canyon. Quickly drenched by monsoon-like mists, it is not the chill that leaves one trembling. It is the proximity to nature, raw and elemental.
Thousands of kilometres away, off British Columbia's west coast, on the craggy southern tip of the Haida Gwaii archipelago, cedar mortuary poles stand in silence. Slowly but steadily decaying, they are returning to the soil of their birth, where the San Christoval Mountains sink beneath the Pacific. Here, in the stillness of SGaang Gwaay village ruins, one only has to listen carefully to hear the sounds of children playing by the water's edge, or the triumphant return of the whaler's canoe.
And this weekend, great waves of migrant birds will descend onto the sandy shores of Point Pelee in southern Ontario; flocks of grebes and gulls, canvasbacks and pintail. Many will continue north toward the magnificent but little-known arctic lands of Auyuittuq, Tuktut Nogait and Sirmilik, which are creaking to life with the approach of equinox. Honeymooners and March-breakers will wander driftwood-littered Long Beach on the exposed outer shores of Vancouver Island, while across the country Nordic skiers will float through Gros Morne's wind-stunted tuckamore forests in Newfoundland.
This is the stuff of our national parks.
“Canada! We have more square feet of awesomeness per person than any other nation on Earth,” the beer commercial shouted over and over during last year's Vancouver Olympics, to a steady backdrop of national park scenes. And we all raised our glasses, for Canadians love their national parks. A 2010 Environics survey placed national parks alongside health care, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our flag as the top four symbols of Canadian identity. Parks came in ahead of hockey, the RCMP and even the anthem. But, as much as we love our wilderness, it's possible we don't grasp – from a global perspective – just how great it is. “Parks Canada oversees one of the most extensive, best managed, and highly respected park systems in the world,” explains Harvey Locke, former president of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and co-founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon conservation project. “It should be a fantastic source of pride for all Canadians.”
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
In 1885, when John A. Macdonald set aside 26 square kilometres near Banff Hot Springs to protect the area from “sale, settlement or squatting,” no one had a clear idea of what a national park was, or how one should be managed.
To the south, the U.S. Army had been called in to run Yellowstone. In Australia's newly created Royal National Park, native trees were being logged at a dizzying rate, mangrove swamps bulldozed over, amusement villages built, and invasive animal species introduced to enhance sport hunting.
Twenty-six years later, as the number of visitors to Banff (and four other nearby “scenic reserves”) began to soar, the government established the Dominion Parks Branch to manage and protect these infant parklands. The man in charge – J.B. Harkin – was a visionary. His deeply held faith that wilderness could rejuvenate the human spirit changed the face of parks worldwide.
“Use without abuse” was the ideal he sought, a delicate balance between public access and protected environment. In the years ahead, he established preservation standards and helped draft the National Parks Act.
