Watson said parks near the state's urban centers are especially popular, because camping can be an inexpensive way for someone to visit a city like San Francisco, where hotels can cost 10 or 20 times the price of a camping spot.
In its 40 years of life, it has turned the Rideau Canal into the world's longest skating rink, planned urban bicycle paths and ski trails in Gatineau Park, and cleared LeBreton Flats, once a timber town and the camping place of lumberjacks and fur-trading voyageurs.