To charge or not to charge

We went with our local hiking group today to Webster Falls Conservation Area in Dundas (near Hamilton) , part of the Niagara Escarpment and the Bruce Trail goes through there as well, of course. We hiked 10-12 km, saw Tew and Webster Falls and enjoyed the scenery. It's very beautiful out there, the trails are interesting enough and even partially hilly and with staircases. Yeah!      

The downturn was the entrance charge. Last year $8 per car, they are now already charging $10 per day! In order to avoid that we parked the cars at a school less than a km down the road. At this conservation area's main parking lot they don't trust people to use the parking ticket dispenser and instead have a cashier who happened to start working at the time when we gathered in the parking lot. Smelling that we must have gotten there somewhere she grumpily told us we all had to pay $4 per person. Dave and I had come in a pedestrian entrance though that said $2 per person. I must say the majority of the group was annoyed about the charges that hike every year considerably and this woman even seemed to make them up out of anger. So we cramped 8 people into a car, laughed ourselves stupid (this was stupid after all) and paid $10 for the load. The woman mumbled something about calling the cops. Blabla.

Note that there are at least another 5 entrances to the conservation area, especially when you come along the Bruce Trail or enter through a residential area where there is not even a sign mentioning a fee. If you stick to the Bruce Trail you will not even get close to the ticket booth.     


Here's what angers me: I hate paying to enjoy nature. But here the conservation areas (CA) are run by municipalities. So even if we bought an annual ticket that gives us access to a bunch of local CAs we pay extra every time we visit one a little further away. Bah. Go to a Provincial Park and the province wants your money, go to a National Park and the feds (Parks Canada) want it. Boo boo booo!!! Stupid system. Why don't they introduce a single annual ticket for ALL protected areas in the country and that's it, if it really has to be. 

In Germany all this access is covered by our taxes already, nobody would dare to charge a per day user fee. Besides we don't have too many fences around farmland so you walk, cycle, ride horses there. In the UK they have a Public Right of Way which allows everyone to cross private farm property on foot, sometimes by bike if you don't mind lifting it over fences with steps. That gives people access to the countryside just about anywhere, totally legal and nobody has to bother driving to a conservation area, provincial park etc just to go for a hike. They've created a trail system that basically covers the whole country!! In Iceland you can go just about anywhere. In Canada there are fences, everything's private and nobody wants to have you on their land (after all, you may bring a stupid ATV or snowmobile). So unless you stick to city parks you pay to get access to a trail, waterfall or whatever. Nonsense! Besides, the fees are too high.