LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
Despite an extreme season of forest fires in the NWT, the Nahanni National Park Reserve had a tourist season that was on par with recent years.

Nahanni National Park Reserve interpreters including, from left, Andrea Mitchell, Dorothy Stearns, Tammy Matou, Pauline Campbell and Jerry Antoine participate in training at Rabbitkettle Lake in June. Visitor numbers at the park, while up slightly from last year, were on average with the last five years. - photos courtesy of Parks Canada

Staff with Parks Canada were expecting to see a decrease in visitor numbers because of the forest fire season and its impacts on tourism, said David Britton, the park's superintendent. Instead between June 5 and Sept. 19, 407 people made day trips to the park and 393 stayed overnight for a total visitor count of 800.

That number is a slight increase from the 760 visitors last year, but within the five-year average, Britton said. It's difficult to say what led to the increase, but it may be a result of the increased efforts the park has been making in the last year and a half on promotion in conjunction with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, NWT Tourism, and some local businesses, he said.

"It's a modest increase over last year, but given the overall tourism season that the NWT had we were pretty happy to see that," said Britton.

The park itself had a quieter fire season than the rest of the territory as a whole with just three fires compared to nine last year. One of the fires came within approximately four kilometres of the Virginia Falls campground at its closest point. No trips were canceled as a result, but there were smoky conditions around the falls for approximately a week, he said.

"For a couple of weeks we were monitoring it really closely."

Staff are exploring new ways to draw more visitors to the park. This summer, the park ran two joint trips with the Alpine Club of Canada, specifically the Whitehorse chapter, to document hiking and climbing routes that can be shared with visitors as part of a push to promote the park's alpine areas that are lesser known than the South Nahanni River.

"With the park expanding we now have all of these amazing alpine areas like the Cirque of the Unclimbables and Vampire Peaks," Britton said.

This winter, staff will also be looking at the opportunities provided by the Howard's Pass access road that Selwyn Chihong Mining Ltd. is upgrading. Coming in from Yukon, it will be the first time there has been road access to the park, even if it is to a small and distant part of the whole park. The road will go through approximately 24 kilometres of the park and into a slightly longer portion of the adjoining Naats'ihch'oh National Park Reserve.

Possibilities include back-country alpine hiking and paddling the headwaters of the Little Nahanni River, which connects to the South Nahanni River, he said.

Staff also placed trail cameras in the Howard's Pass area last year to gather baseline data on how caribou use the area.

Staff will also be redesigning the hike for the tufa mounds. The replacement of the Rabbitkettle River ferry this summer means that the hikes, which last ran in 2010, can resume.

"That's one of the the iconic experiences for people visiting the park," he said.

In addition to interacting with visitors, staff also worked on the park's ecological integrity monitoring program that is part of the federal government's national conservation plan for conserving ecosystems so Canadians can experience them. This summer an ongoing study on bull trout in Prairie Creek was continued and a new research project on Arctic grayling in the Little Nahanni River was started.

"It was a good season," said Britton.

Although the park's season wasn't affected by forest fires, the blazes had an impact on one of the three airlines based in Fort Simpson that flies tourists to the park.

Simpson Air had a few cancellations from people who were deterred by reports of the forest fires in the territory. Driving to Fort Simpson meant going through affected areas near Fort Providence or Hay River, which stopped some people despite assurances that conditions in the village and the park were fine, said Kristen Tanche, the company's manager of finance and sales.

Simpson Air took approximately 165 people on day tours of the park, down by about 20 people from last year. Nahanni Wilderness Adventures, which offers guided raft and canoe trips in the park and which Simpson Air flies for, also had slightly lower numbers, she said.

Wolverine Air and South Nahanni Airways' seasons more closely mirrored the park's as Wolverine Air saw a slight increase in day trips as the result of drive-in traffic while South Nahanni Airways flew in a few more outfitter trips.

"We had an awesome season," said Laverna Martel, the executive director for both companies.

Martel said it is common for numbers to fluctuate between the local airlines with one seeing increased business if the numbers at the other are down.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.