The Disneyfication of Canada’s national parks (Globe & Mail)

Published Friday, Jan. 22, 2016 7:10PM EST

If it hadn’t been for the California gold rush, Walt Disney would have been a Canadian, as was his father.

There are some in Parks Canada who quietly believe – and many who were once with Parks Canada who will no longer stay quiet – that the godfather of theme parks would have fit right in here, the way things have been going.

They point to the 24-metre-high Mother Canada statue that may soon be going up in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. They mention the increasing infatuation with “glamping” (“glamorous camping”) in park campgrounds. They shudder at the proposal for roofed overnight accommodation at exquisite, unspoiled Maligne Lake, a major attraction in Jasper National Park. They cringe at the Glacier Skywalk that has been built along the Icefields Parkway that runs between Jasper and Banff. They shake their heads to think that land may soon be taken out of legally designated wilderness and added to the Lake Louise ski resort lease so that the ski operation could nearly double in size.

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Canada’s world-famous national parks, Mr. Van Tighem says, are no longer valued for what they were intended – but are increasingly being treated as “raw material to be commodified into a bundle of Disneyesque visitor attractions and marketing packages.” It is as if “nature was no longer enough,” laments the former superintendent.

Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-disneyfication-of-canadas-national-parks/article28359840/?cmpid=rss1