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BC Discover Camping portal crushed under heavy traffic

Not so happy campers

UPDATE: 1:45 p.m.

Many not so happy campers took to social media to voice their frustration Monday morning.

Some suggested Discover Camping should be renamed Discover Frustration, and others asking why this volume of web traffic was not anticipated. 

"I’m hearing no Covid update today from Dr Bonnie Henry... ...she’s still trying to book a campsite on #discoverCamping #BCproblems," wrote one Twitter user.

"Maybe the #DiscoverCamping team is out Discovering Camping and that's why we can't reach them?" wrote another.

Kelowna resident Jennifer Buskermolen spent three hours from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. trying to secure a campsite at Mabel Lake Provincial Park after missing out on her first choice of location at Kettle River.

"At first I thought ok, I get it, I get it being really busy, I do. I completely understand it being very busy at 7 a.m. and I was willing to accept that, but here we are now 10 o’clock in the morning and I haven’t even made it past the reserve unit.

"If they were having some kind of technical issues they should have let people know, like the media. They should have said, "not only are we experiencing high volume but we are also experiencing some technical issues, please bear with us, we’re resolving the issue," because now they’ve got a lot of pissed off people."

She says because the Discover Camping portal doesn’t hold your spot in the campground during the reservation process, when the system crashes you also lose your camping spot.

"I promised my children camping this year because we didn't go last year, and I'm just - three hours, I mean, how long am I willing to sit here? ... I'm in tears right now."

The Ministry of Environment said in a statement that the last time the site was busy there were 1,100 reservations in one day, but in the first half hour of opening Monday about 800 reservations were booked.

It says 50,000 people were online at opening trying to access the system.

While government staff made efforts to be ready for additional demands, it says the 35,000 reservations made before lunch exceeded expectations.

The ministry thanks all those who tried to book a site for their patience and apologizes to those who were unable to access the system.

with files from the Canadian Press


UPDATE 11:30 a.m.

The provincial government’s Discover Camping reservation system is more stable after a crush of web traffic brought it down Monday morning. 

Minister of Environment George Heyman says more than 7,000 reservations were made this morning, when the province opened reservations in advance of campgrounds opening on June 1. 

“There is lots of inventory remaining and we are working hard to ensure BC residents can book as quickly as possible,” Heyman said.

“I appreciate people's patience, and am glad to see so many people excited to enjoy BC Parks this summer. Our plan is to safely open as many parks as possible so that BC campers and day visitors can rediscover the wilderness beauty close to home.”


UPDATE 8:20 a.m.

While BC Parks opened its camping reservations site Monday morning, few people have been actually able to book a site. 

A Castanet reporter has tried, and failed, to book a site for the past 90 minutes, but the Discover Camping portal is crashing repeatedly. Numerous other Castanet readers have reached out to say they have been unable to get through.

"Annoying experience and so disappointing that a government website is so useless!" said one reader.

Social media is also full of B.C. residents frustrated with the situation, likely caused by heavy web traffic.


ORIGINAL 7:20 a.m.

There should be some happy campers in B.C. today as many campgrounds across the province are prepared to open June 1, reservations open on the Discover Camping website today at 7 a.m. Bookings can be made on a rolling two-month period, so as of Monday, reservations can be made up to July 25.

B.C.'s provincial parks were temporarily closed because of a lack of physical distancing during the pandemic, but many have reopened.

BC Parks website says, "to ensure physical distancing, you may notice some changes in campgrounds, including additional spacing between campsites and limitations on the number of guests in campgrounds."

Access to campsites is limited to B.C. residents for the entire 2020 season but not all sites will open and some will open with reduced capacity.

Non-B.C. residents with a previous reservation can contact the BC Parks call centre for a refund before June 15. Non-B.C. residents who try to make a reservation after May 25 will have their booking cancelled.



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