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"You will not be able to book reservations five months in advance during this period. This means there will be no reservations processed for arrival dates after April 1, 2011 until we go-live with the new service provider. This applies to reservations for campsites, backcountry and roofed accommodations."

It looks like the good news is that you don't need a reservation. Just show up. Without reservations, there are no reservation fees, or cancellation fees. [smiley=thumbup.gif]

Yeah, but there's still quotas/limits.  If I understand Q properly, Nym allows 20 entries per day.  Be the 21st and you're SOL.

Even worse for places like APP where we're required to use marked sites.  One could show up and find that there's nothing available.

First come first served is not how I want to 'plan' my vacation.  Not sure I'll be using OntPP next year with this kind of uncertainty.  There's Crown Land in abundance.

Preacher wrote on Nov 2^nd, 2010 at 4:32pm:

Not sure I'll be using OntPP next year with this kind of uncertainty.  There's Crown Land in abundance.

Well, thats not free either and even that's limited for non-residents.  And, you need to get pretty far off the beaten path to escape the motorized boats.  In Ontario anyway.


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It's free for me.  Crown Land is my land, Crown Land is your land (if you're a resident).   :P

I know some places, far from the maddening crowd & motor boats.  One must pass through babylon to get to the promised land, but that just makes the destination all the better.

Preacher wrote on Nov 2^nd, 2010 at 5:47pm:

It's free for me.  Crown Land is my land.

You're fortunate.  I'm close and do own land in Ontario but close only counts in . . . something or other.

I would love to get east of Marmion Resevoir, above the dams and through that river system someday.  Someday . . . .

Twenty!?  :o

FWIW - Nym isn't part of Quetico. Closest entry is #21 Batch with a total daily quota of 7.
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I didn't make reservations for the last two years due to the specifics OS mentioned AND I'm fairly certain the resident quotas won't be full. Worst case? I could easily enjoy a day being permit-bound in the area.

plenty of crownland spots within an hour of atikokan....quiet and motorboat free

It's my sense as confirmed by outfitter that the high fees and barbless requirements have made it so you can get a permit most days for that day.  Might not hold for every Sat-Sun-Mon and not every entry point, but demand is down for Q.

The Quetico Park hopes to have the reservation system operating in early 2011.  As soon as it is up and running we'll all be able to reserve permits for the season, even 5 months in advance if it's February and you want to book a trip in July.

The first come first served is for these transition months of fall and winter camping reservations where they are needed. Just a short time from now until the service is up and running, early 2011.

It shouldn't affect any of the Quetico Park permits since it wasn't too long ago when we couldn't start reserving any permits until January when all of them became available.  The first few days of the new reservation service might be busy but after that I bet it will be back to normal, or normal before this last year anyway.

I pushed the point (anyone surprised?) with OntParks, stating that I would not risk being turned away from any access point because of this cluster f*.

I was given an absolute answer from what appeared to be someone actually involved in the new reservations system.

The reservations system will be in place for the Ontario Trout Season Opening Weekend.  That's my big cabin fever first trip of the year gotta go gotta get out before I go crazy trip.  Every year in APP.

Here's hoping is not just hype & hope.

OntParks needs to stop this 3rd party business.  If a 3rd party can make a business out of taking reservations, then OntParks can do the same and make use of the profit.  Maybe they can make use of the profit in lower fees or better policing - my preference being policing.

I don't know when trout season opens but for Q, if you enter before the park opens there's no quota to worry about.

I always thought trout opener was New Years Day

Up here we co-ordinate each species' open season with a best-practices for the future of the fishery in that region.

For example, Trout Season.  It typically opens the last Saturday of April.  This gives the fish a chance to spawn and allows anglers a chance to enjoy the best trout fishing of the year.     (You need to Login or Register  That's yours truly in the picture c. 1988.

The more stressed a species is, the stricter the regulations.  Sometimes this involves adjusting the season dates and even closing bodies of water.  Places that want to conserve a fishery will have the spawning grounds closed during spawn.  Sometimes this involves other restrictions like slot size limits, barbless, live bait, etc...

indeed, Ontario Laker season Jan 1-Sept 30.  They spawn in the fall.

I love ice-out laker fishin'!

Preacher wrote on Nov 5^th, 2010 at 5:51pm:

I OntParks needs to stop this 3rd party business.  If a 3rd party can make a business out of taking reservations, then OntParks can do the same and make use of the profit.

Not necesarily: if they do it themselves, they have to hire people from the Ontario Government Employees Union (or whatever it's called). A third-party contractor can often do it without paying the high wages and inflated benefits. Sort of similar to Canada Post's outsourcing program.

Many people have found that contractors work a lot harder than employees too (even non-union ones). Maybe the fact that the link between contractor payment and client savings is so much more visible has something to do with it.

(Full disclosure: yes, I am a contractor, though in a totally different area of business)

Good point Joe.  It's just so frustrating to deal with these 3rd parties, a frustration felt by us the end users and by parks themselves.  I'm likely fooling myself into thinking the ministry could do a better job keeping this inhouse.

UPDATE

"Ontario Parks Reservation Service
As a valued customer, we want to extend a personal invitation to you to try our new Ontario Parks' reservation system. The site will be available on January 14 and 15 so you'll be able to create a new user account as well as explore the new features and functions designed to provide better customer service. Reservations will be accepted on Sunday, January 16th, at 7:00 a.m. EST. Visit our reservation information page for more details"

I went on-line and made my account.  And then got confused.

It is still unclear to me how you reserve an entry point into the QP.  The system seems focused on "campsites."  When I click on "backcountry" (which might not be the right thing to do), it says backcountry permits are not provided by the system.

So once again, I'm befuddled by the bureaucracy.  I hope to talk to a live human voice on Sunday and figure it out....  unless one of the QJrs already have the answer.

prouboy

We were never able to reserve interior permits online as I recall. Seems easy enough but nooooo. No clue if that's changing this year but I always liked calling and asking about availability on days surrounding my preference to get a feel for less used dates and entries. That was always somewhat difficult for them.

It would be nice to go online and see which days were busy and which weren't.

"From Ontario Parks website


Backcountry Information
Backcountry reservations are not accepted online but can be made through the Ontario Parks Call Centre at 1-888-ONT-PARK (1-888-668-7275). For trip planning information, please contact the park directly. Please see the Backcountry Information pages for more information."

Created online account and discovered same as mentioned above.
For backcountry, online not available, need to call 1-888-ont-park
100.00 deposit for Q reservation   :o

Yep that's the same as it was last year.  $100 ~= 1 person for 1 week.