Boondocking in Canada
Oriana,
If I remember correctly, you are a Canadian citizen correct? I think there might even be a couple of others on here that reside in Canada as well. If so, I would like to hear from you as well.
Here in the States, we have boondocking opportunities thru the Bureau of Land Management, the Corp of Engineers, the National forest Service and others...Are there opportunities to Boondock in Canada under these same types of governmental agencies?
Curious...
Separately, how far north could you get these big rigs without running into road issues? We may be up there next year as we are going to travel up to Alaska. But coming back, we might like to venture across the northern territories heading over to the Mackinac Bridge.
Thoughts?
We have National Parks & Provincial Parks and all camping within them must be in an actual campsite, which requires a nightly fee, even for unserviced sites. We don't boondock, so have only used National Parks at Banff & Bay of Fundy. Jasper in Alberta also has sites we could access.
Most Provincial Parks are not set up for big rigs, so you would need to research carefully. With respect to BLM, CoE, etc I do not believe we have similar types of organisations.
Don & Judith have spent a few years with their RW towed by a small semi throughout BC & Yukon, and I believe they have used a number of rustic areas.
When researching routes across Canada last year I could not find any road across the far North. They have reasonable roads heading north from most Provinces, but not one all across the top. We only use campgrounds and they were not readily available the further north you go.
I concur with Andy's comments with respect to our larger RV's. As a fellow Canuk we have also done some traveling through the country from coast to coast and in the north. Our provincial parks aren't as friendly towards larger RV's as the state parks are in the US, they tend to suit RV's up to about 30 ft. or so, mainly because of tighter turns and trees not being trimmed to suit larger RV's going through (it's deliberate so to preserve nature!).
Having said that, the private or town operated campgrounds offer an alternative.
Our blog contains details of trips in the country, this link shows our western trip we took, we made into our Northwest Territories and BC, if you use the links at the top you can see the Alaska and Alaska Highway trip as well. These trips were done with Glendale Titanium RV's, a 24 ft, and a 30/35 ft. unit, a bit shorter then out current 36RL.
This is the link to our home page:
We haven't done any "boondocking" . We dry camp in campgrounds.
We have been able to fit our rig in a few BC provincial parks. It pays to unhook and scout the park before committing yourself.
Territorial parks in Yukon and North West Territories are $12/night and the firewood is free. No hookups. We found no problem getting spots.(we're 62 feet total.) The info centres up there are fantastic. The roads up there are rough in places from the frost heave, and resulting repairs. The Dempster Hwy is actually pretty good. We went all the way to Inuvik. Keep in mind it is a gravel Hwy. So when it rains, slow it way down or hunker down somewhere and wait til things dry a bit. As it's a gravel road, it's Very dusty when you open the door. We still find Dempster dust in little nooks and crannies.
We did not go into Alaska. We will go there on another trip. We had a copy of Milepost. Full of some good info.
The north is great. We would go back in a heartbeat. Good luck and safe travels
