The Alberta government has announced it will make a $25.6 million in capital investment into improving provincial parks in the Calgary-Kananaskis region.

The investment will go towards new campsites, hiking trails, shower buildings, more and larger campsites, more campsites with power, picnic tables, expanded parking lots, and refurbished day use areas.

Shannon Phillips, Minister of Environment and Parks says as Alberta grows, it’s important to maintain and improve our Provincial Parks

“We’ve added more than a million people to Alberta but haven't done any upgrades to our campgrounds, “she says. “From our perspective we were making investments in our schools, and hospitals through our capital plan. We made sure that we also made investments in the kind of infrastructure that supports tourism and supports families: our parks.”

The money will not only be used for improving experiences in Provincial Parks, but also for upgrades to emergency response in the back country and Kananaskis.

Minister Phillips is hopeful the upgrades will also create jobs for contractors affected by the slow economy in the area, through paving, engineering work, and construction.

“There’s a lot of contractors, and others right now who because of the downturn in the price of oil are a little less busy than they used to be. So one of the ways that we can get folks to work really quickly is through campground maintenance. It's not the large infrastructure projects that take a lot of planning, they're sort of right now, ready to go jobs.”

The $25.6 million will go towards maintaining and developing parks infrastructure for:

  • Bow Valley Provincial Park
  • Peter Lougheed Provincial Park
  • Don Getty Wildland Provincial Park
  • Big Hill Springs Provincial Park
  • Elbow River Provincial Recreation Area
  • Sibbald Lake Provincial Recreation Area
  • West Bragg Creek Provincial Recreation Area
  • Cobble Flats Provincial Recreation Area
  • McLean Creek Provincial Recreation Area
  • Gooseberry Provincial Recreation Area
  • Fallen Timber South Provincial Recreation Area
  • Kananaskis region