First trip a bust

[SilverEscape]

Supposed to leave for our first trip of the season today. It got cancelled due to all the forest fires around here and heavy smoke making it not smart for people to be breathing in the air all day; especially little kids.

I tried to book at southern lake instead, far away from the fires, but our campgrounds are booked up here in March so no chance. As well, the entire province is covered in smoke, so while the southern lakes aren't a severe risk like were we were going, they are still not the best place to hang out all day and breathe in the air. You can't even see the sun here.

What makes it worse is that we bought our trailer last July and all the campgrounds in the province were booked up, so the only "camping" we got to do last summer was a couple weekends at the in-laws farm, and two nights at an actual lake. It's almost a year after a heavy investment of trailer and truck, and we're stuck with days off work and nothing to do. I'd like to say we could just do something fun at home or camp driveway, but the smoke here is so bad, I can't really have the kids outside for any length of time and we don't have air filters for the trailer like we do for our house.

Could be worse. Could be one of the families getting evacuated from their northern homes due to the fires. Still makes me sad though as the kids had counted down the days to go the beach and hang in the trailer.

[Skaling]

Where in Canada are you exactly?

[TWP723]

Better safe than sorry. Always next time!

[namusmc65]

If I had a week off from work, I would head south! A day or so driving should get you out of that smoke and into some fresh air. Still leaves 4-5 days of fun. Some of the northern states have beautiful parks and plenty to do.

[Flapper]

I'm guessing the OP lives in Manitoba, based on current fire maps of Canada. If camping around Canada Day is anything like camping around the 4th of July in the US, the OP's frustrations are understandable. There do seem to be a number of private campgrounds around Winnipeg that *might* be worth a call to see if they have any openings, even if not for the whole time, so something can be salvaged of the trip. Crossing the border is a possibility, but that gets you into the camping crush for the 4th of July this next weekend.

[SilverEscape]

I'm in Saskatchewan. Our entire province is covered in smoke, so there is nowhere in our province without smoke currently. I tried to find something in Alberta, but every campground was booked full up. There were a couple campground with first come, first serve sites that had 2 non-powered sites available yesterday afternoon, but I wasn't going to drive 4 hours in the hopes that one of those 2 sites would still be around.

To get out of the smoke and go the Manitoba direction ends up being too far of a drive. I'm back to work Monday, so not a ton of time. And we have an 18 year old driving up with us who has to head back to work Friday night so a long drive home alone isn't the best for someone still gaining highway driving experience. Here, most of the highways are 2-way (one lane each way) so you have to be able to pass large semis by going into incoming traffic, etc.

Unfortunately the USA is out as we don't have passports.

[tjpolsin]

I'm not sure of Canada's equivalent to US forest service or BLM campgrounds, but those might be an option. I know it is a gamble as you usually can't reserve them.

take a scouting trip out for the day with a picnic basket to one of your non-reserveable campgrounds, and see how full it really is.

good luck. And best of luck with the fires.