Too many visitors prompts B.C. to close its side of Peace Arch park at U.S.-Canada border
Too much love and togetherness during the COVID-19 pandemic is prompting British Columbia officials to temporarily close their side of Peace Arch park as of 8 p.m. Thursday, June 18.
“Due to a dramatic increase in visitation in recent weeks, this park has been closed until further notice. No access is permitted to the park and the gate is closed,” stated a post on the BC Parks website.
The park straddles the U.S. and Canada at the border between the two countries. While Peace Arch Provincial Park — as it’s known on the Canadian side — is being closed, it remains open for day use on the U.S. side, where it’s known as Peace Arch State Park.
Located in Blaine on the U.S. side, the park and its white arch are a monument to peace between the two countries.
The U.S.-Canada border has been closed to non-essential travel during the pandemic. That closure is expected to last at least through July 21.
Families and loved ones on both sides of the border started to meet up again at Peace Arch Park when their respective countries re-opened parks that had been closed during the early days of the pandemic. B.C. reopened its side of the park, located in Surrey, on May 14.
Media coverage of people reuniting and even getting married at the park, which served as a loophole to the border closure, may have increased the number of visitors.
“This closure addresses the public safety and traffic concerns in neighboring communities due to a significant increase in the number of park visitors,” the B.C. government wrote in a post on its website about its decision.
“Since then, parking lots and local access roads have been overwhelmed with nearly twice the number of vehicles compared to peak days in the summer season, resulting in illegal parking. Attendance has doubled over the same period compared to last year, leading to an increase in pedestrians along roadways,” the post states.
B.C. officials said they tried to manage the increase in the number of visitors by posting signs, increasing patrols for enforcement, installing a gate at the park entrance and reducing park hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“The measures have not addressed the risk associated with the significant increases in visitors from both sides of the border,” it concluded, saying the “park will reopen when it is deemed safe to do so.”
BC Parks said it understood “the importance of unification for families and friends.”
Canadian officials said there were exemptions to the Federal Quarantine Act, which allows immediate family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents to enter Canada to be with an immediate family member for at least 15 days, as long as they don’t have symptoms of COVID-19 and self-isolate for 14 days when they arrive.
About those border crossings
The border may have been closed to all non-essential travel but that hasn’t stopped Americans from trying to get in to Canada.
A total of 7,639 foreigners, most of them Americans, were barred by border agents from entering Canada from March 22 to June 16, according to a June 18 CTV News Canada article.
They were trying to enter Canada to sightsee, shop and play, which are not considered essential under the restrictions that both countries have had in place since March 21 to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 1:11 PM.
