Motto: Always Leave A Place Better Than How You Found It
Growing up, my dad used to tell us this little piece of wisdom: "Always leave a place BETTER than the way you found it"
What did he mean by that exactly? He meant that if you find someone else's garbage....you be the one to pick it up. Don't just leave it there because it's not your mess. If you find that someone has broken something then you be the one to fix it if you can. This applies to anywhere, not just camping, but it is a particularly important attitude to have while camping. It doesn't take long for a few bad apples to ruin a place for everyone else. Take care of your things (your parks, your campsites) even when others don't. Perhaps others will see what you do and follow in your foot steps. I think this is such an important piece of etiquette that I am adopting it as the official Provincial Parker's Motto.
What did he mean by that exactly? He meant that if you find someone else's garbage....you be the one to pick it up. Don't just leave it there because it's not your mess. If you find that someone has broken something then you be the one to fix it if you can. This applies to anywhere, not just camping, but it is a particularly important attitude to have while camping. It doesn't take long for a few bad apples to ruin a place for everyone else. Take care of your things (your parks, your campsites) even when others don't. Perhaps others will see what you do and follow in your foot steps. I think this is such an important piece of etiquette that I am adopting it as the official Provincial Parker's Motto.
Rules Of Camping Etiquette
1. Don't play your radio or music devices without using headphones. - We have come to relax and enjoy hearing the birds sing and the crickets chirp. We did not come to hear Lady Gaga, Hank Williams, Ozzy Osbourne , Lil Wayne or Jay-Z. If we wanted to party or listen to music we would have stayed home or went to a night club. Even your low levels of "quiet music" carry far and much louder than you realize throughout a park, and this is especially true near a lake. You can turn your music down or off, but we can't turn the sounds of nature up.
2. Don't chop down trees or break branches off of living trees. - First of all, we don't want to hear the noise you make doing this. But more importantly, if you kill the trees there will be no parks left to go camping in. Even just breaking branches off the trees can do damage that can kill the tree. Sure just one person breaking one or two branches will not make that much of an impact, but you are one of hundreds of people that go through a park each year and if everyone or even if only half of them damage the trees then the forests can't sustain the damage. Instead, buy your firewood from the park gate or near by vendors.
3. Don't bring fire wood from other campgrounds (especially out of province) - Bringing wood from other campgrounds means you are potentially transporting invasive insects or plants that can do serious harm to the environmental ecosystem of the area. Whenever possible, buy your wood from the park store.
4. Clean up after your dog - As a dog owner, I am often disappointed to come into provincial parks and find doggie doo-doo in the sites, on the sides of the roads and along the beaches or picnic areas. Just because you are no longer walking along a concrete side walk, it does not mean that it is OK to let your dog do it's business just anywhere without cleaning it up.(And cleaning it up means bringing that bag to a trash
can, NOT just leaving the bag in the bush or on a path somewhere) .Maybe you think that since there are so many trees that it is unlikely
someone else will come across your dog's one little pile of poo. Well, think again. A park is where everyone explores and treks through the
bush looking for that fantastic nature picture or walking to get away from it all for awhile. It's where people put up tents and eat food. It's
where kids play and pick things up. It's where other dogs sniff and mark their own territory. The scary thing about other dogs coming behind
yours and coming across a previous dog's doo-doo is the types of diseases they can acquire this way. A long list of potentially infectious
agents are known to live in dog feces -- from E. coli to tapeworms. But perhaps less well known is the fact that a lot of these parasites
actually become more infectious as the poop ages. Roundworm, for example, can take up to three weeks, and then may remain infectious for
years in contaminated soil and water. Did you know that dog poop is the # 3 cause of water pollution? When it rains, feces left on the ground
can wash into the nearby lakes, streams or wetlands. Even in small doses, E. coli can get into the water system and cause significant
trouble. In addition to releasing nutrients into the water that can feed on algae and kill marine life, excrement contamination can also send
unlucky beach-goers home with bouts of diarrhea or hives. One gram of dog feces contains 23 million fecal bacteria and can cause a list of
diseases and viruses such as coccidia , campylobacteriosis, round worm, tapeworm, E-coli, Gardia, Parvo (an acute, highly contagious
disease that can quickly kill your dog or someone elses dog), and Salmonellosis. According to the EPA dog poop is as toxic as a chemical
spill and oil spills. If it doesn't get into the water system, flies and other pets can carry the diseases to humans and other pets. Not to
mention.....EWW!! GROSS!! We don't want to come across it. Would you want to come across someone elses dog's feces?
ALWAYS BAG IT AND TRASH IT, EVEN IF NO ONE IS LOOKING!!
can, NOT just leaving the bag in the bush or on a path somewhere) .Maybe you think that since there are so many trees that it is unlikely
someone else will come across your dog's one little pile of poo. Well, think again. A park is where everyone explores and treks through the
bush looking for that fantastic nature picture or walking to get away from it all for awhile. It's where people put up tents and eat food. It's
where kids play and pick things up. It's where other dogs sniff and mark their own territory. The scary thing about other dogs coming behind
yours and coming across a previous dog's doo-doo is the types of diseases they can acquire this way. A long list of potentially infectious
agents are known to live in dog feces -- from E. coli to tapeworms. But perhaps less well known is the fact that a lot of these parasites
actually become more infectious as the poop ages. Roundworm, for example, can take up to three weeks, and then may remain infectious for
years in contaminated soil and water. Did you know that dog poop is the # 3 cause of water pollution? When it rains, feces left on the ground
can wash into the nearby lakes, streams or wetlands. Even in small doses, E. coli can get into the water system and cause significant
trouble. In addition to releasing nutrients into the water that can feed on algae and kill marine life, excrement contamination can also send
unlucky beach-goers home with bouts of diarrhea or hives. One gram of dog feces contains 23 million fecal bacteria and can cause a list of
diseases and viruses such as coccidia , campylobacteriosis, round worm, tapeworm, E-coli, Gardia, Parvo (an acute, highly contagious
disease that can quickly kill your dog or someone elses dog), and Salmonellosis. According to the EPA dog poop is as toxic as a chemical
spill and oil spills. If it doesn't get into the water system, flies and other pets can carry the diseases to humans and other pets. Not to
mention.....EWW!! GROSS!! We don't want to come across it. Would you want to come across someone elses dog's feces?
ALWAYS BAG IT AND TRASH IT, EVEN IF NO ONE IS LOOKING!!
5. Don't feed the wildlife - As fun as it may seem to feed that "poor little" raccoon or chipmunk or bird or whatever critter you may come across, you are not doing it any favours. Nor are you doing the other campers or the park rangers any favours. You are teaching the animal to come to the campsites for food which means that they will stop foraging for what they would eat naturally. Then, when all the campers are gone for the season, they no longer are able to fend for themselves and could, in fact, starve to death later on down the road. Or worse, they could become aggressive or nuisance animals and have to be relocated or, in some cases, be put down. You may think that "just this one time" is OK. But if you are the 20th or 50th person to think that way that year, then that is a whole lot of food from human hands that the animal is getting and learning from. You have no way of knowing who has fed them before you or after you. Besides, you may be feeding them something that is not good for them. For example, so many people want to feed bread to birds. Bread molds fast outside and ingesting these molds can cause a whole range of illnesses in birds. Bread offered in too large pieces may also cause blockages in birds' digestive tracts. Crop stasis, a condition where the crop fails to empty properly and food ferments leading to secondary yeast infections, can result from bread consumption. The biggest problem with offering bread is that it does not offer proper nutrition to birds. Birds that fill up on bread feel full, but have not obtained the fats and proteins needed for survival. Feeding chipmunks and squirrels peanuts is also bad because it is not a naturally occurring food for them. Surprisingly to some, store bought peanuts can be treated with chemicals that are toxic to wild animals. Typically, wild animals naturally disperse across the landscape, but artificial food sources promotes the concentration of animals into a small area which increases the incidence of feces, saliva, and urine, which easily harbor infectious disease-causing micro-organisms like bacteria, viruses, or fungi. Further, if food is not consumed fully, the remaining rotting food will attract mice and insects. This also increases the potential for the spread of disease. Don't add to the problem and don't become the problem. Just don't feed the wildlife.
Remember: A Fed Wild Animal Is A Dead Wild Animal.
Remember: A Fed Wild Animal Is A Dead Wild Animal.