The camping season is winding down at Portage la Prairie’s Island Park Campgrounds, with officials reflecting on a year significantly impacted by poor weather and widespread wildfires in Manitoba.
Heather Greenlay, General Manager of the Portage Industrial Exhibition Campgrounds, which operates the site, says it has been a different season marked by a noticeable drop in bookings compared to recent years.
A season impacted by weather and wildfire smoke
Greenlay attributes the decline primarily to the heavy smoke that blanketed the province for much of the summer, which led to a wave of cancellations from campers understandably unwilling to endure the poor air quality.
"It's been a different season. I believe that we will be down in actual bookings. A lot of that was due to the smoke from the wildfires. We had cancellations because people just didn't want to be outside in that thick smoke." she says, and goes further to note, "And the weather was a strange year; we had very hot weather in May, and then it got cold and rainy. Now that it's clearing up, we are seeing a bit more of an uptick, but it's a different crowd, a different crowd without families, without kids travelling this time of the year."
While she did not provide specific figures, Greenlay confirms that overall campground income is down from the last couple of years, noting a particular absence of the large group bookings that typically fill weekends.
"We are definitely down in our bookings and our campground income from the last couple of years for sure because we haven't had full weekend bookings this year. Other years, we've had family reunion bookings and things like that, but a lot of people just did not want to be outside in the wildfire smoke."
A silver lining in Canadian travellers
Despite the challenges, the season was not without its positive trends. Greenlay highlights a welcome surge in a different type of camper: Canadians exploring their own country.
This provided a steady stream of shorter-term bookings that helped offset some of the losses from cancelled family reservations.
"Overall, you wouldn't call it a bad season. It was down from other years, and very different because of the smoke. You wouldn't have thought that we were affected that much, but I did have people cancel because of that. Something that was different was that we had a lot of overnight or two-night or possibly weekend bookings from people travelling in Canada that we didn't see as much of in the last few years. That was really nice to see because people were staying within Canada. Our campground is kind of in between different destinations, so they see how far they can get in the day, and then they give us a call or they book online."
As the season concludes, the campground prepares for its quiet winter months, looking ahead with optimism for a return to more typical weather conditions, and hopefully, the only smoke in the air coming from campfires crackling into the night.
