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THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
Parks Canada has launched a new strategy to let Canadians know the importance of the two national parks in the southwest NWT - Nahanni and Wood Buffalo.

Tim Gauthier, a communications officer with Parks Canada's Southwest NWT Field Unit, holds his smartphone which displays an image from a new video about Nahanni National Park Reserve. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Tim Gauthier, a communications officer with Parks Canada's Southwest NWT Field Unit, said the strategy - based on two new videos of the parks - is a bit counter-intuitive because it uses social media, which itself may be contributing to keeping people away from national parks.

"Parks Canada is increasingly concerned about Canadians spending more time on social media and less time out enjoying nature, thus lessening their connection to their parks," he said. "This is particularly true for remote and Northern parks like ours, which already had less visitation than southern parks near population centres."

The project was launched on Jan. 20 and the videos are being distributed via smartphones and social media - things such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

"In other words, use the tools that are weakening Canadians' connection to national parks to strengthen it, instead," Gauthier said.

There is a four-minute video on Nahanni National Park Reserve and a three-minute video on Wood Buffalo National Park. They consist of still photography and highlight features of the parks through written text over the images without narration.

The initiative, which is unique to Wood Buffalo and Nahanni, is the brainchild of Neil Ingroville, the Southwest NWT Field Unit's Internet content and new media officer based in Calgary. Ingroville worked on the project with Gauthier and Mike Keizer, the field unit's manager of external relations.

"Other parks are doing their own initiatives through social media, but this was our entry into it, and there's been a tremendous amount of interest so far," Gauthier said, noting other parks have active Facebook pages, especially parks with a high number of visitors such as Jasper and Banff National Parks in Alberta.

A unique feature of the two videos is there is a high-resolution version for sites such as YouTube, but also a low-resolution version that can be easily e-mailed or downloaded to a smartphone.

"So they're easily shareable and it's a way for us to connect with Canadians," Gauthier said.

The video of Nahanni National Park Reserve features images of the park's spectacular scenery, highlights its unique plants and animals, and celebrates aboriginal culture.

Gauthier said the theme is the connection between the land, the water and the aboriginal people. "And how all of those come together to tell one really inspiring story about this beautiful place."

The Parks Canada spokesperson said the video on Wood Buffalo National Park is different because it focuses on the immense scale of the park, which covers areas of the NWT and Alberta.

The Wood Buffalo video highlights bison, the endangered whooping crane, Canada's only salt plains, the Peace-Athabasca Delta and other features.

"So it's all about scale, and the immensity and the majesty of Wood Buffalo," Gauthier said.

The videos are available in both English and French.

Judging by comments about the videos on YouTube, the videos are being very well received.

Among the reactions to the Nahanni video are: "The Nahanni is a beautiful treasure that all Canadians should experience, but few can! This video helps bring you there," and "Awesome pictures. What a great land."

The Wood Buffalo video brought the following comments: "Amazing," "Gorgeous," and "Stunning photography, a really informative and tempting video."

As of Feb. 1, there were 1,295 views of the Wood Buffalo video on YouTube and 450 views of the Nahanni video.

Gauthier said the videos were entirely an in-house project for Parks Canada and cost nothing to produce but salary dollars. They use existing photography from Parks Canada staff.

There will be more videos in the future, possibly as soon as a couple of months.

"As long as Canadians are hungry for this information, we are happy to provide it through whatever means possible," Gauthier said, noting future offerings will be shaped based on the reaction to the first two videos.

The videos are not about promoting visits to the parks, he explained. "That would be icing on the cake. The purpose of these is to show Canadians the beauty and majesty of these places and to show that, even if they never get to a remote or Northern park like Wood Buffalo or Nahanni, these places have inherent value."

In 2011, there were 3,910 recorded visitors to Wood Buffalo and 1,033 visitors to Nahanni.

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