Canadian Forcslri; Journal, Auyiist, 1!>I7 \'2'.\'.^ 



The Dollar Value of our National Parks 



Telling of the Remarkable Gold Mine 

 that Lies in Natural Scenery. 



FIFTY MILLIONS IN TOURIST TRAFFIC 



\V. T. I'olison, Organizer of Ihc Canadian Travel Association, (formerly General 

 Adverlisini» Agent of the C.P.I^.j, prepared a careful estimate of the amount of money 

 spent by tourists in Canada in the year 191:'). His figures were 850,000,000. 



These figures place the value of tourist traffic in the fourth position with respect 

 to revenue from Canada's national resources. 



The comparison is: — 



Held crops, Canada, 1913 509,437,000 



Forest products, " " 161,093,000 



Minerals, " " 102,300,000 



Tourist traffic, " " 50,000,000 



Fisheries, " " 43,667,000 



In adding up our national assets 

 there is one source of revenue which 

 is often overlooked and that is natural 

 scenery. Timber and agricultural 

 lands, coal and minerals, water powers 

 and fisheries — the value of these is 

 easily recognized, but we are just 

 beginning to realize that lands whose 

 chief endowment is scenic beauty 

 may from the purely dollars and 

 cents point of view be as valuable 

 as any and in the long run possibly 

 even more valuable. Like other nat- 

 ural resources, natural scenery is in 

 constant danger of spoliation by pri- 

 vate interests and requires conserva- 

 tion and development to reach its 

 highest valtie. National parks are a 

 recognition of these principles. They 

 are reservations set aside by the 

 government in order that our finest 

 scenic areas may be conserved and 

 developed for public benefit and ad- 

 vantage for all time. 



Travel Now Easy and Cheap 



The value of natural scenery, how- 

 ever, depends chiefly upon its accessi- 

 bility and it is only within compara- 

 tively recent years that it could be 

 said to have a value at all. So long 

 as travel was difficult and tedious, 

 requiring an expenditure of time and 

 money which placed it beyond the 



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enjoyment of all but a limited few,, 

 natural scenery was only a local 

 possession. The developments of the 

 last century have made travel so 

 easy and cheap that it is now within 

 reach of almost everyone. The de- 

 sire for travel, for seeing the cus- 

 toms, manners and scenery of other 

 lands than our own, springs eternal 

 in the human breast and it is a taste 

 that grows by what it feeds on. The 

 consequence is that travel simply 

 for pleasure has in recent years reach- 

 ed enormous proportions, involving 

 in those countries which particularly 

 attract it, expenditures of hundreds 

 of millions of dollars per year. 

 A Tourist Gold-Mine 

 A glance at the tourist revenues 

 of some of the popular European 

 countries before the war shows how 

 great these expenditures may be. 

 Figures compiled by a trustworthy 

 authority placed the tourist revenue 

 of France in 1913 — the year before 

 the war, at $600,000,000. Switzer- 

 land's share was estimated at S250,- 

 000,000 and Italy's at over SlOO,- 

 000,000. In these countries tourist 

 travel is recognized by the authori- 

 ties as one of their most important 

 sources of wealth and shortly before 

 the outbreak of the present conflict 

 one of the prominent members of 



