Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

NORTH THOMPSON VALLEY

Despite uptick in regional visits, Clearwater still misses European visitors during tourism season

Aug 28, 2020 | 4:10 PM

CLEARWATER, B.C. — Clearwater is known as the “Gateway to Wells Gray Park” and enjoys a significant economic benefit from the thousands of tourists who visit that natural wonder every year. 2020 has been a year like no other, and with fewer tourists visiting the province from outside of Canada, the North Thompson community is feeling the effects of that downturn.

Another beautiful summer day at Dutch Lake in Clearwater. Locals and visitors play on the beach and splash in the water. For a moment, it almost feels like any other year – until you realize without COVID-19, this place would probably be packed with tourists from across Europe and Asia.

“I think across the province, even though things feel like they’ve picked up in August, we’re still down around 40 per cent,” Stephanie Molina, Executive Director of Tourism Wells Gray tells CFJC Today. “We’re missing our huge European markets we rely on to have big profitable years, so it’s very different that way.”

Despite the pandemic, it appears traffic from B.C. and Alberta has picked up as restrictions around COVID-19 eased.

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“We certainly felt the change here, around mid-July and into August where things suddenly started feeling kind of busy,” Molina says. “Even though it feels busier than it did early on, it’s still a very different season”

Just down from the public beach is the Dutch Lake Resort and RV Park. As restrictions eased, Owner Jon Kreke struggled with the uncertainty around how to re-open his business safely.

“Like most industries, a lot of guessing and not really knowing how things were supposed to go,” Kreke explains. “Just following guidelines from here and guidelines from there and kind of making your own way. It was very slow through June – May, June, much of July.”

Wild Flour Bakery is just off the main road that takes travellers to Wells Gray Park. Owner Kris Olson closed her shop down from March until July and used the downtime to remodel. She says once she reopened, locals and visitors flocked to the business.

“It was busy right away. Yep,” Olson says. “A lot of Interior BC [travellers] and as the season has progressed, a lot coming up from Vancouver.”

Olson has been one of the lucky ones. She hasn’t noticed a downturn in business this season; in fact, it’s gone the other way compared to 2019.

“During the summer [of 2019] we saw 75 per cent of our business was international,” she explains. “This year I think we’re seeing an increase again, of tourist traffic, from this domestic market.”

Molina is hopeful the situation around COVID-19 testing and screening improves so that tourism and hospitality businesses in the North Thompson are able to recover.

“If those things are sorted out for next season, I could certainly see a very strong recovery for British Columbia, and for our town as well.”