Waterton Lakes National Park hit capacity, diverted visitors over long weekend

It was a busy weekend for national parks in Alberta, with many taking advantage of the Canada Strong Pass. One got so busy tourists were turned away.

Parks Canada is reminding visitors to Waterton Lakes National Park to plan ahead after the park reached capacity and had to divert traffic over the August long weekend.

Spokesperson Christy Gustavison says officials noticed a high level of visitation around noon on Sunday, Aug. 3.

Shortly after, at 1:30 p.m., the park gates were closed to inbound traffic.

“What we observed was congestion on the roadways both throughout the park to popular places like Red Rock Parkway, Cameron Lake and throughout the townsite – as well as limited parking availability,” Gustavison explained.

“We want to be sure we don’t reach gridlock for safety reasons, like any other jurisdiction, so that’s why we made the decision.”

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The diversion remained in effect for several hours before being lifted at 4 p.m.

Gustavison says it’s still too early to know how many total travellers visited Waterton over the weekend.

Parks Canada says efforts to raise awareness of trip planning, promoting shoulder season and less sensitive areas of the park and managing crowd sizes is ongoing.

“We do post updates on congestion at popular areas throughout the day on weekends, and so certainly factor in arriving early,” said Gustavison.

‘Expecting big crowds’

Shameer Suleman, owner of Bayshore Inn and Spa and the president of the Waterton Park Chamber of Commerce, says the August long weekend is typically the busiest of the year.

“It’s always the biggest and busiest, so we were expecting the big crowds,” Suleman said.

He says it was nice to finally see the park busy after a rainy June and July damped visitor expectations.

“The trend for the last decade has been busier and busier into August and September,” he explained. “It’s been a busier year than we’re used to, but not the recording-breaking year that we thought.”

Suleman says the Canada Strong Pass, which gives visitors the chance to access the national park for free, has played a role in the number of tourists visiting Waterton Lakes.

“The amount of local, Canadian traffic has spiked very noticeably, especially day traffic,” Suleman said.

“A lot of people that may have thought ‘We’re not going to make that trip down to Waterton or into our national parks because it is going to cost money.’ This time, the expense is now gone, so we’re seeing a lot of those folks coming in and enjoying the park.”

Last year marked the second busiest on record for Waterton Lakes National Park, according to Parks Canada, with more than 540,000 visitors through the gate.