British Columbia, Canada is covered in mountain ranges, raging rivers, serene lakes, lush forests and sits on the west coast Canada neighbouring dark blue oceans. Wildlife is every where and wilderness is our backyard. Most of the BC province is rural with a few major cities. But for visitors and locals, the talk of every BC town is the 11,400,000 hectares of BC parkland covered with over 2,700 kilometres of hiking and biking trails.

The BC parks under provincial management including protected parkland areas, recreation areas and ecological reserves accounts for 826 parks in the province of B.C. as of 2004. This, by no means, is the total of British Columbia Parks available to explore because we also acknowledge that BC is home to some Federal Parks, Municipal Parks and forestry company wilderness parks.

The BC parks very in accessibility. Most parks allow hikers and more and more are opening up the trails to bikers and horseback riders. But not enough park space is protected for our future generations. Only 12.5% of our province is protected (very small percentage relatively) and 0.6% is Federal Parkland.

Each park varies in amenities and maintenance. Much of it depends on location and jurisdiction - if it is government, municipal or privately operated. There are 340 provincial campgrounds (11,075 campsites) in British Columbia. Many have a "pay to use" format in place for parking and overnight camping. And almost every region has wilderness campgrounds in the back country.

Some parks are mainly for the human population (overnight camping and day use parks) while others like the Khutzeymateen Provincial Park ( Canada's only grizzly bear sanctuary ) is home to about 50 grizzlies. While 70% of British Columbia's five million nesting seabirds are protected in 13 ecological reserves scattered throughout BC. And Tweedsmuir Provincial Park at 989,616 hectares, is British Columbia's largest provincial park.

On Vancouver Island the 440 metre Della Falls in Strathcona Park is Canada's highest and one of the ten highest falls in the world! Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park is one of the most productive sockeye salmon hatchery.

6 of 10 people living in BC visit a park every year tells you it is an important part to our living conditions. The British Columbia park system should be explored by every visitor when in BC, Canada. But, when visiting the parks do your research on what is available and any costs that might be associated.