Friends of the Quetico Park Hurting

A year after celebrating the centennial of the park it promotes as well as its own 25th birthday with a storefront presence in Atikokan, the group Friends of Quetico Park is featuring a scaled-down profile in 2010 due to tough financial realities.

Jessica Smith of the Atikokan Progress has the full story HERE.

The organization that last year had an office on Atitkokan’s Main Street and operated a gift shop at Dawson Trail has tightened its belt in 2010.  In addition to closing its facilities in Atikokan and at the Dawson Trail gateway into Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park, the organization no longer employs an executive director and did not hire summer staffers this year.  The moves were made by the groups’ executive committee in light of tight budgets and over-stretched volunteers.

The Friends of Quetico Park is hoping to find its niche as a promoter of the park which has seen a reduction in visitors over the past decade.  To that end, the group is planning to publish a kayakers’ guide to the park and intends to host a wilderness kayaking symposium next summer in hopes of attracting the growing number of recreational kayakers to Quetico.

The Friends of Quetico Park has recalibrated its mission before.  Last year, HERE, we briefly recounted the history of the organization on its 25th anniversary.