STEPHEN RICCIO
OTTER LAKE Aug. 12, 2020
Parc Leslie is now allowing visitors who wish to stay for less than a week, hoping to bring in more campers after having opened with tight restrictions on June 1.
After being given the green light to open by the province at the end of May, the campground determined that its best bet for dealing with . . .
COVID-19 would be only allowing campers who had trailers with washrooms and would be staying for at least a week.
According to Roslyn Carter, who works in administration at the park, the decision was made to avoid logistical issues around constant sanitization of the washrooms that would be required were there campers with tents.
“It was just a decision we made ourselves,” she explained. “Each campground, there are the provincial guidelines, but then each campground has their own personal guidelines based on their occupancy and all that kind of stuff.”
The recent changes mean that campers can now stay for less than a week, but those who do not have a trailer with a washroom inside are still not permitted.
“As far as I know that’s gonna be for the rest of the summer,” she said regarding no-tent campers. “It’s just too hard to keep everything sanitized.”
Despite dealing with less than ideal circumstances to begin the summer, Carter said things have gone well since opening.
“It’s been very good, campers have been pretty cooperative for the most part and everybody’s wearing their masks within close range and in our store and our office so we’re quite pleased with the cooperation we’ve gotten from campers,” she said.
She added that business has been good, but that the circumstances limit them.
“It’s certainly not as busy just because we’re restricting the number of campers we’ve had in, but we’ve certainly been turning a lot of people away yes, because of the policies we have in place,” Carter said.
Carter said that the park has vacancies for much of the remainder of the summer, including for trailer camping, the two available cottages and the house trailer that they rent out.
The campground will remain open until Oct. 12 this year.
