B.C. campgrounds are officially up for grabs as the province began accepting online reservations on Monday morning.
The environment ministry said its reservation website has been experiencing high volume, but has not crashed.
Around 4,500 bookings had been made by 8 a.m., and the ministry said visitors were getting through within a few minutes.
Outdoor enthusiasts have long complained about B.C.’s campground reservation website — high traffic, glitches and even crashes — but Environment Minister George Heyman said last month that the province had added computer server capacity in anticipation of high demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NDP government unveiled its plan for camping season last month, promising British Columbians would have priority access.
Heyman acknowledged that the honour system will be the only thing guaranteeing locals get first priority.
“We’re requiring people to go to a landing page that attests and confirms they’re a resident of British Columbia, and then they go through to the reservation page and begin to make their plans and their reservations,” he said.
— With files from Richard Zussman and Simon Little