Whistlers Campground — Hotel in Municipality of Jasper

Extremely Disappointed with Supervisor Conduct and Campground Operations

I had a deeply upsetting experience during a recent trip to Jasper, involving a Parks Canada staff member named Gabby H. While she appears soft-spoken, her actions and attitude were anything but professional.

I was at the end of a 2.5-week camping trip that I had planned seven months in advance. After several bonus nights of being shuffled between campsites due to “unavailability,” I had not yet had the chance to dry out my tent after weeks of mostly rain. On my final day in the park, I placed my tent in an unoccupied site nearby to let it dry out (ironically to prevent damage) while I went into town to manage a family emergency—my father had just had a heart attack, and I needed WiFi access to handle logistics.

While I was gone, during high winds, Gabby removed the tent stakes—an action witnessed by campers at the adjacent site. They later told me how disturbing it was to watch a ranger deliberately sabotage someone’s tent so it would blow away. Unsurprisingly, my nearly brand-new $400 tent was destroyed. The rain fly was torn beyond repair.

When I returned an hour later and followed up, Gabby denied involvement, despite two of her colleagues confirming it was her. She also left a handwritten note at the site, signed with her initials, which only further confirmed her role. When I tried to explain the circumstances—including the family emergency—she responded by belittling me about the placement of the tent, showing no empathy or accountability.

While I understand if she initially thought someone was trying to claim the site, the destruction of personal property—without notice or warning—is inexcusable and, frankly, unacceptable.

On a broader note, this incident highlights serious inefficiencies in how the campground is managed:

Rangers do not cancel unclaimed reservations within the 48-hour window, per policy, leading to artificially limited site availability.

Parks Canada offers no refund or incentive for people to cancel reservations they don’t plan to use.

Checking in and out daily while also being expected to visit the kiosk every morning at 11 a.m. to reserve a site is unrealistic for multi-day travelers.

Despite being told repeatedly that the campground was full, I routinely saw many unoccupied sites. For example, at 10 p.m. in Loop 27, I personally counted at least 10 empty campsites. Based on what I observed in other loops throughout my stay, this seemed typical. Conservatively, that suggests that hundreds of sites across the campground may go unused on any given night. Yet earlier that same evening, rangers told me there were no available sites and wished me “good luck.” Only after I became visibly upset and filed a complaint did a site suddenly become available.

I want to be clear that the park itself is beautiful, and the facilities are well-maintained. The natural environment is stunning, and I wish I could leave a five-star review. Unfortunately, the actions of one staff member and the poor campground operations left me with an experience I can’t recommend in good conscience. I hope Parks Canada takes this feedback seriously and re-evaluates how it trains staff, manages reservations, and supports travelers during times...

My Campground Review Whistlers, Jasper, AB

Date July 9/25

Our equipment 5th wheel RV, length 30 ft, height 12 ft 7 in

Costs 5 × $36.00 CampFee-ServE-H-20295* 5 × $13.75 CampFirePermit* 1 × $11.50 ReservationFee* Total (CAD): $260.25

Loop, Site & Services Huge park, 7 loops no services, 3 loops electric only, and 3 loops full services

Overall Jasper National Park is recovering from the 2024 wildfire season and is open to visitors, with most areas and businesses welcoming tourists again. While the park’s mountains and valleys may look different, some of the park remains as beautiful as ever. But it will take time to soften that ‘scorched look’ surrounding us in Whistlers.

Registration office (easy to find? staff friendly? & helpful?) Best in its class, several staff, all friendly and helpful, both amazingly busy and fast to process our registration. RV parking area huge, plenty of room for the biggest rigs.

Interior park roads (widths adequate? any obstructions?) Plenty wide, no obstructions.

Open sky vs treed canopy All open sky, offering magical night sky views.

Electric & off grid Mix of full services, electric only, and no services.

Cell reception (including Bell, Rogers) Speeds were very sporadic, depending on time of day. Rogers varied between 10 Mb & 100 Mb download. Bell was a bit higher, varying between 20 Mb to 200 Mb download (nighttime is best).

Noise restrictions (on generators? music?) Generator use is restricted to specific times of the day: 8:00 am to 10:00 am and 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm.

Traffic within park Very little traffic.

Showers & toilet facilities (modern? clean?) Very modern facilities built in 2019 (most were not affected by 2024 fires). My only critique with such modern facilities is there are not enough showers and toilets in each building for the number of campers in each loop—2 showers only per building (unisex) & 2 toilets only for men, 3 toilets for women. The wait for showers in the evening could be over 1 hour. Mornings could be almost as bad for toilets.

Dry toilets (sole type? or as additional Ts?) none

Laundry facility Does not have laundry facilities on-site. Campers needing laundry services will need to go into the town of Jasper for access to laundry facilities.

Bike & hiking trails within park Numerous trails, both from campground and within short driving distance. Note however that most trails take you through burnt forest areas. But not all; we thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon hike at Hibernia Lake and Majorie Lake trail, unaffected by the 2024 fires.

Body of water (clean? swimmable?) Several small lakes in Jasper offer beach swim areas.

Water filling and sani-station (adequate? free? how many stations?) A modern RV sani-dump station with three bays, accessible from either the driver or passenger side of the RV. The dual-side access ensures that regardless of the RV’s waste connection location, it can easily be...

If you are from a major center and/or don't camp often you may enjoy this campground because it provides more structure and "guidance" than most provincial campgrounds. If you are a more frequent camper you should read the rest of this review because you might be surprised by what's going on.

We stayed at Whistlers Campground twice in August 2023 and both times we had a less then ideal experience. We won't be using the campground again.

To keep it short I'll just itemize

Although not mentioned anywhere, only some of the campsites have firepits. It's luck of the draw if you get one. Otherwise no fire for you. We were very disappointed because campfires were banned in BC and we came to Jasper to enjoy a campfire. The staff were unconcerned about this. The only solution they offered was "next time look at the site picture and try to zoom in and try to see if there is a firepit at the site"

Small charcoal bbq's are not allowed anywhere on the campground even though campfires are. We had no way to cook our food since our site didn't have a firepit.

Likely due to the campground's large size and number of inexperienced campers, campers are treated more like summer camp kids instead of customers by the campground staff. Instead of making sure everyone is enjoying their stay, staff spend much of their time patrolling and snooping through every campsite looking for even the smallest infraction of the rules. There are more rules at this campground than other provincial campsites. We went for firewood and when we came back the staff were confiscating our bear proof cooler. We had to sit through a 10 minute, patronizing, speech about how how that behavior results in dead bears. We camp often in bear territory and always keep our campsite bear smart.

There are great, new, large, bathroom and shower facilities. The facilities are empty most of the day except in the mornings when everyone is rushing to check out or get to their excursions. Its this busy time when the staff all come out and close the bathrooms to clean them. Why they can't do it during the day when the facilities are mostly empty is a mystery.

There is a kids activity once a day but there are more kids that want to do it than staff so the staff turn kids away in a way that results in a lot of...