Talk:Canadian national parks

Long list article?

This looks like an awesome Wikipedia style list article, but doesn't really work as a travel article (in my opinion). Should this be tidied up, or would that incur howls of protest? :) --Andrewssi2 (talk) 10:40, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

How would you propose to tidy it up? I could see grouping items by province, and providing one-sentence descriptions to help the reader choose which parks to look into further. Ground Zero (talk) 10:52, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

More like the format of United States National Parks, but without "99" beside the names of most parks. Ground Zero (talk) 19:07, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I actually quite like the table design. It gives travelers an idea of the place they're visiting without overloading them with paragraphs about the place. Just because it's also on Wikipedia doesn't mean we can't use the table design, which I've now incorporated onto the United Kingdom National Parks article. Selfie City (talk) 03:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

It still looks listy to me, in that it is in violation of Wikivoyage:Image policy#Minimal use of images in having complete streams of photos of every park in long rows on the right margin and putting unnecessary white space between entries in order to fit all those images. Wikivoyage style is for this site not to be a gallery of images. Can we be more selective with the images and eliminate the white spaces between entries? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this specific article is an odd-one out. Many of the articles breadcrumbed under Category:National parks and Category:National parks in Australia have a similar style, layout and scope (the sole exception is National parks in Australia). As such, many articles such as United Kingdom national parks, South Australian national parks or Tasmanian national parks all look similar, and contain a lot of images. Maybe some evaluations of each park topic article might be needed. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:58, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

And I object to the format of all of those. We had a knockout, drag-out fight at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy that led to the departure of Prince Gloria. I don't want that to be for naught. See Wikivoyage talk:Image policy/archive 2014-2019#Minimal use of images - not appropriate. Maybe we need to reopen that discussion, which was resolved in 2018 but is being blatantly flouted in the articles you mention? Please reread the following:

• For longer articles, 1 image per screen (1,000–2,000 bytes) is generally adequate.
• Images should be distributed throughout an article, not bunched up in any section.
• Try to avoid having more than 2 or at most 3 successive images without space between them.

This article is in absolutely blatant violation of all three of these hard-fought guidelines. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:10, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Maybe it is worth starting a discussion on how topic articles on parks should be formatted. The biggest issue is that in this article and Tasmanian national parks, both have very detailed information regarding the parks, but are blatant violations of the image policy as you mentioned, while articles such as United States national parks, Ohio state parks, New South Wales national parks or Indian national parks and wildlife sanctuaries is that they don't violate the image policy, but is nothing but a list of parks while National parks in the Northern Territory and Finnish national parks don't violate either, but both are redlink farms.

Pinging @LPfi: who suggested this format which is used here and in Tasmanian national parks in the pub if they may want to comment. I was planning to use this format in South Australian national parks but I will hold that off. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:24, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

The format of United States national parks is fairly reasonable, though there should probably be a photo of a park in California, and there are probably still a couple too many images bunched up in other sections. The impulse to have a photo for every listing is precisely what was shot down by a big consensus in the now-archived talk page discussion I linked above. If we've decided to embrace that policy, we should let Prince Gloria know he's won and invite him back. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:12, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree that we should discuss good models for this kind of articles in general. In the linked policy discussion two main points were "visually pleasing" and "bandwidth". The latter is not a big issue in these articles, as I suppose people read them when planning their journey, not out in roadless territory pondering about where to go next.

To encourage readers to visit some park while visiting the country, having a good selection of images can be vital. For that means, we don't need images of every park, a visually pleasing article providing nice reading is more important. Also, most images represent features present in several parks. We should also provide enough information for the reader to choose what links to click for more comprehensive information.

The format of this article (like the former table format) is chosen on the premise that readers choose the park to read about based on the image, and to be fair, every park should have an image. However, the image usually represents only one aspect of the park. I suggested the format, but as an alternative to the table based one, without prejudice about totally different options, which this discussion is about.

Finnish national parks has the format I chose when writing it. Yes, it is a redlink farm – because I wanted near complete coverage while not having resources to write all the articles. I am probably going to change the redlinks into links to a listing in the nearest city (as suggested on the project page). The destinations part is mainly a collections of list. It is hard to avoid that if you want to link 100+ destinations without having a multi-megabyte article. The lists cover three out of ten screenfuls. National parks in Australia has a similar approach. United States national parks has a similar layout for the list part (I should probably add markers for the Finnish parks), with an amount of images adapted to the list length, but has a very short Understand and nothing about park passes, getting in and around etc.

–LPfi (talk) 08:14, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Finnish national parks also has too many images in a row, in violation of the guidelines I quoted above. Wikivoyage articles are supposed to have a limited, illustrative selection of images with text between them, not galleries showing every attraction in an article, whether the attractions listed are museums, churches or national parks. We made a decision not to follow the Eyewitness Guides format and lost a very active contributor over our decision to maintain the principle of "minimal use of images" and define it. It really bothers the hell out of me that we would slide into increasing violations of that and Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists after all the time and emotion spilled over a discussion 4 years ago. There are many styles that work for guides, but it's not OK to violate site guidelines without establishing a new consensus in the appropriate thread, which I linked to above. Do we really have to unarchive it and renew that discussion because of the activities of a few people in a particular set of topic articles? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:26, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Also, I wasn't paying any attention to things like how long the "Understand" section is; I was reacting purely to the lack of gratuitous white space between listings and the lack of a long stream of thumbnails, though there are in fact still too many in a row in some places in United States national parks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:34, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I agree also the Finnish article was too picture heavy; seems I got sloppy at some point. I now removed a few (and replaced a few more, to keep the remaining representative). In my browser window there was never more than three in a row, now there is more text between them, so that there never is more than three visible at a time. That's more than one per screenful, but I wouldn't like to remove too many. I think one or two more could be removed, if I find more representative images to replace some others. Do you think the article still has all too many images? –LPfi (talk) 09:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Not all the images are great, some are there more as placeholders for an image with a similar theme. Discussing the format, let's not get distracted by that. Even if we had loads of great images for any conceivable aspect, the number used shouldn't change too much. –LPfi (talk) 09:53, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd say there are still too many images, as there are more than 2-3 in a row in some places, but part of the issue is that they're bunched up, so if they are distributed a little more evenly, while a few might still need to be removed, it'll be more Wikivoyage-style per the points I quoted above. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

What about New South Wales national parks (as I don't have an opinion on that)? It's approximately 40k bytes, has a fair few images, but I think that article may need to be regionalized. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Too much area with no images. It's best to distribute them more nearly evenly. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:36, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

I'll add some images to that article soon. Even after 250 edits to that article (based off XTools), it is still very incomplete. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:40, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

So your window is much wider than mine :-) To get that effect I have to widen the window so much that there is white space rather than text lines between some image groups in the Destinations section. Anyway, I am sympathetic to doing some tweaks. Distributing the images more evenly requires finding suitable images from the regions with few images. I did some such replacing, where suitable images were easy to find, and I'll search some more at a later time. Expanding very short destination descriptions will also help a bit. But do I understand correctly, that this would be about tweaks more than that the format is problematic? –LPfi (talk) 11:32, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm giving up. With a window wide enough to get the more-than-three-in-a-row problem, I cannot get a pleasing layout while keeping two images per destination region. There'd need to be a paragraph on each destination rather than a one-liner as now. I did remove one and moved a couple. I'll try to find a few better images, but I'd rather add one for the Lakeland, and replace a few; except for the tent (which is non-essential) I wouldn't want to remove any. –LPfi (talk) 11:56, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

SHB2000, how about distributing the existing images better before you add more images? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:56, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Changing image size

The images on this table are rather small. I'm currently plunging forward and changing the size of these images, but if they're supposed to be at 175px, of course change them back. Selfie City (talk) 01:22, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Park fees

It seems the info on the Discovery Pass and the Cultural Access Pass has been more or less copied to several (all?) articles on Canadian national parks. For some, like Auyuittuq National Park‎ it seems confusing, as it is not clear whether the passes cover these parks at all (see the talk page of that park), and whether the passes include backcountry camping (they do not, if I read the official site correctly). One should note such additional fees also here. I think an expedition to check such info for each park (to ensure the info is intelligible given the special circumstances) is needed, and perhaps one should just link here for info on the passes ("The Discovery and Cultural Access passes are valid for entry, but they do not cover the other fees"), to avoid having outdated prices in a dozen articles. --LPfi (talk) 10:47, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

A link to this page on common information about the fees would make sense. --Traveler100 (talk) 11:14, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

I've added this link. Fees vary by park - there doesn't seem to be one page listing all of these fees. Ground Zero (talk) 13:08, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Entry fees link

@Ground Zero: The park entry fees link seems to be giving a "server error" message. Do you have the current link. This link seems to be covering about fees, but I'm not sure whether it's the same one. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:16, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I've updated it. Ground Zero (talk) 13:06, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Marine parks

Just wondering, but should national marine conservation areas also be included in the article? Parks Canada says there's only five, (but we only have an article for Saguenay–Saint-Laurent Marine Park (and Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, but I'm confused on that one) and it seems manageable and I don't think it'll get too long but I'd like another opinion before adding them in. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:51, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Why wouldn't they merit a mention? If you're asking whether they merit articles or not, the standard would be the same discussed on the U.S. national parks talk page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:33, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Banner

While I like the current banner, it appears to be taken from w:Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie National Park which is a Quebec national park. The alternative is recycled from Talk:Alberta taken in Banff NP. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:00, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Banner 0

Banner 1

Gotta go with Banff. Beautiful. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:32, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Done. I can't really decide whether Banff or Jasper NP is more beautiful, but both are my two favourite Canadian national parks. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:49, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Generalized info

I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to add some generalized information about what can one do in Canadian national parks somewhere along the lines of Finnish national parks or Tasmanian national parks, including general info on accommodation in Canadian national parks, things to see in national parks etc.. However, as Canada is huge, it may be hard to give an overall description unlike the former two mentioned, but we can still give a regionalized description as long as it benefits the traveller. Just a suggestion, as I don't know a lot about Canadian national parks, but @Ground Zero, Pashley, Tai123.123: what do you think? --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I think that information is best kept in the park articles, rather than trying to add it here. This is already a long article, so I'd prefer to keep the descriptions brief, and keep the derail in separate articles. Ground Zero (talk) 12:14, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean generalized information about individual parks or all Canadian parks in general? Tai123.123 (talk) 19:52, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Canadian parks in general. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:17, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I think I misread SHB2000's proposal. I think there is so much variety among the parks that generalized information would be difficult. When you consider the range from Rouge National Park which lies partly within the city of Toronto, to the heavily touristed parks in the Rockies, to remote, inaccessible parks in the far north, they don't have a lot in common with each other. This article also lists the National Historic Sites, which are different yet again. Ground Zero (talk) 01:29, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense. I was thinking about that, as Canada is a huge country with a range of environments but I wanted to get another opinion on it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:33, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

This might very well be true, but I don't think it is about being huge: Finland spans a bit more than 10° of latitude, 1,100 km (680 mi), which isn't much compared to Canada's more than 40°, but it is still more than from Montreal to Mealy Mountains National Park or from Dallas to Chicago, and area is from about 10 km² to more than 1,000 km². Similarity between Nuuksio and UKK is much more about a commons hiking culture (among wilderness backpackers) and common central administration than about similar climate. –LPfi (talk) 09:02, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I guess it's a similar case as to why getting the scope of National parks in Australia was not an easy task and only the get in and eat sections remain reasonably developed, but the scope of the NPs in Aus is different to this one, because it mostly looks like an arbitrary selection of national parks by The dog2's and mine since there's no single national park system. The system of articles for each state and territory was what somewhat made it easier to regionalize it, but given Canada has a proper national park system, it will be difficult to do such. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:14, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

It is easy to group the parks by region in the list. Get in should mention the span of differences (just walk in from the adjacent town, or fly in to an outfitter in a who takes you there), and perhaps also other such sections, but I suppose services are on a few different levels: What can you expect from a campsite in a national park? What kind of trails are there? Is it common to drive around and step out to see the sights, or are you expected to hike to see anything? If this varies, are there some different typical patterns? In Finland parks in the south usually have lean-tos, while the northern parks have wilderness huts, and smaller parks you usually follow trails, while those just cover a small part of the larger parks. Perhaps Eat, Sleep etc. can have subsections for the typical patterns, or just individual typical features (in Finland: campfire sites for camping, cooking shelters, lean-tos, day huts open wilderness huts, reserveable huts etc.) –LPfi (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

The difference with the Aus one was that because parks are managed by the individual jurisdictions, so it is hard to get overall descriptions on all of them, so most of the parks listed there are based off travel blogs on "What's the best parks". For some, I tried to compile visitor numbers, convenience, but others were based off personal experience off the ≈ 70 parks I've visited. Geography was also another factor, as there were parks at just south of 9 degrees from the equator all the way down to 43, which equals about 35.4 degrees of latitude. For Canada, I can expect similar – the parks in the south will be very different to that of the north, even though those who live 33 degrees from the equator always like to think that everything past the 40 degree line is "cold" but it's obvious that parks at 42 degrees is very different parks at 82 degrees is hard to cover in a single article. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:40, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Group by region?

Coming back to the question of this long list and the jam-packed map, I will propose again the the parks and national historic sites be groups by region following the grouping use in the Canada article (BC, Prairies, Ontario, Québec, Atlantic, North). This would allow for maps that would be useful. Comments? Ground Zero (talk) 12:49, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, go for it. However, where would Wood Buffalo National Park go in? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 20:24, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

The principal access is a paved road in NWT. Access from Alberta looks sketchy, so I would put in the North. Ground Zero (talk) 22:43, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I think splitting the descriptions by region makes sense, while the map showing all of Canada is useful. I'd like to take a look at that map before choosing to look at some specific region (unless I already know what region I am going to visit). While online, one can zoom as needed, and at the stage where you haven't pinned down a few specific parks, you probably are online. –LPfi (talk) 09:09, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I've completed the grouping by region. I would like to have regional maps -- Canada is a really big country and visitors will typically focus on one or two regions when planning their trips. Ground Zero (talk) 21:41, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Nice work – looking good. It would be nice to nominate this for ftt one day. Happy to do the map and make the markers only appear in the relevant map, not every map (with one that displays all too), but should it be aligned to the right or the centre? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:21, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

That would be most helpful. I struggled with maps, and would really appreciate your assistance. Use your best judgment on the alignment. I think once one us done, if will be easier to see what works best. As the test already has photos in it, I think the map has to come before the text, and not be in line with it. Ground Zero (talk) 18:14, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I've added maps for each region. Ground Zero (talk) 15:25, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the national map at the top of the article is very useful. Should I remove that? Ground Zero (talk) 19:29, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, while it was once useful, it isn't anymore. I'll remove it in a sec. -_SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 03:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Parks not in table

Is there a reason 6 specific parks are not in the table other than the fact that they have descriptions, also is there a reason that the table lacks a description section? Tai123.123 (talk) 06:17, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

It's a work in progress by Ground Zero to deconvert them from a table to standard formatting, somewhat like the formating in Tasmanian national parks, except without the fancy headings and the UNESCO colours. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:23, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I link I prefer the look of the table to Tasmanian National Park formatting but I trust you and Ground Zero’s judgement. Tai123.123 (talk) 15:48, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

There was a discussion in the Travellers Pub about this. I prefer simpler coding. We've had instances where contributes have created more complex formatting, which has made it difficult to improve and maintain after they have left. Ground Zero (talk) 17:11, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Just read that discussion, the reason I find Tasmanian National parks looks better than Canada's page are the banners that separate the parks in Tasmania, can we add something similar here? Tai123.123 (talk) 01:44, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

It's fairly easy to add. Could do that on this article, but the colours reflect the mapshapes used on the dynamic map and there are no mapshapes on the dynamic map which would need some changes on OSM. I was thinking of doing it, (and did it for some like Naats'ihch'oh), but I abandoned that project (and I don't know why). With that said, many parks relations already have the Wikidata item, so it shouldn't be too hard to do. I'll start the mapshapes soon, and if Ground Zero is okay with it, I'll do the divider. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:11, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Tai123.123, Ground Zero: Just to confirm, if the dividers are put up, it will look something like what you see below. I do fear it might get a bit distracting, but such practice is common on fr.voy where I got the idea from (see fr:Alberta as an example).

1 Aulavik at the northern end of Banks Island in the Northwest Territories is a remote park that protects Arctic Lowlands. It is a treeless Arctic desert with high winds, that is home to muskoxen, caribou, Arctic foxes, Arctic hares and wolves, and polar bears.

2 Auyuittuq is a park in Nunavut. Its name means "the land that never melts" in Inuktitut. It protects many terrains of Arctic wilderness, such as fjords, glaciers, and ice fields.

3 Banff in Alberta has stunning mountain scenery tgat makes it one of Canada's most-visited parks. Together with six other national parks, it makes up the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage site.

---

The biggest issue with that is that it can get very distracting, but I liked the design so I decided to experiment it out on Tasmanian national parks. For the most part, it conveys the job of the colours used in the map, except adding the mapshapes are currently a work in progress. I'm happy to do it, however it is somewhat time consuming, (which is why I never did it to any other national park topic article), but I'm happy to do it here if there is support for it. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:33, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't really like the look of it. I'd like to wait until I've separated the listings by region as I proposed above before we consider a further change. Ground Zero (talk) 12:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah tbh I was a bit skeptical on doing it on a long page like this one at first. It works on reasonably short lists, but not long ones like this one. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:44, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Alphabetization of L'Anse aux Meadows

I know it translates to "the" en anglais, but since this is the English language Wikivoyage, readers who do not understand French may go looking for it and we should not give special treatment to the word "l'" or any other language equivalent of "the". --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Ground Zero (talk) 12:35, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Done. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Is that how English treats foreign particles? In Swedish we ignore von, the, le, den etc. in the beginning of (most) names, i.e. regardless of linguistic origin. Not giving special treatment to the l' will hinder those looking at the place at A from finding it. –LPfi (talk) 15:45, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• York Redoubt.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 06:19, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

See Talk:Canada#A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: several files to be deleted because if invalid licence, but should not concern this one. –LPfi (talk) 13:16, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Not in Wikivoyage style

It's a problem when we have parks articles that have lots of blank space in order to have maximal use of images in violation of Wikivoyage:Image policy#Minimal use of images. This article has been quite understandably taken as a model for Nature Parks in Catalonia. I think it's high time we edited all of the non-conforming park list articles, and if I have the time, I'll start doing so later today. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:48, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I understand the wish to present the parks better than one can do in words, but often one image can show only one out of many aspects of a park, and thus doesn't tell that much. Having an image only for one out of five parks (or whatever getting down to normal image use requires) still allows showing iconic features of those parks that have them and the character of parks the nature of which is unusual. Where needed, the descriptions can be expanded a bit instead (most are reasonably good already). –LPfi (talk) 06:33, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. Thanks for the support, and I've made the edits. If the descriptions are enlarged, some of the beautiful images I removed could be restored. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:08, 31 August 2023 (UTC)