Long Lake Provincial Park (shown in purple in the map below) is unusual among Nova Scotia’s provincial parks in that it lies closely adjacent to the largest urban population in Canada east of Québec. Access to the park is easy for many people by walking, biking, bus or car. By contrast, most of Nova Scotia’s provincial parks are accessed almost exclusively by car, and most visitors drive for an hour or more to visit these provincial parks.
As a volunteer with the Long Lake Provincial Park Association, cartographer Darren Talbot kindly analyzed the situation for car drivers who live within a short driving distance of the main parking lot for the park, on Dunbrack Street (east). The map below shows populated areas that lie within 5 minutes, 10 minutes and 15 minutes drive of this parking lot.
Analysis of Stats Canada data for 2024 made it possible for Darren to estimate how many people currently live within these “visitor driving sheds”. If we consider all of these people as potential park visitors, the statistics indicate the following.
25,000 potential park visitors live in the Green area, which is within 5 minutes drive of the park.
78,000 additional people can visit the park by driving for 5 to 10 minutes from homes in the Yellow area.
107,000 additional people can visit the park by driving for 10 to 15 minutes from homes in the Red area.
Thus, in total about 210,000 people live within an easy drive of the Dunbrack Street parking lot for Long Lake Provincial Park. This is an enormous number of potential park visitors, likely unmatched for any natural environment park east of Québec City. Not only that, the population in all of these areas is currently increasing rapidly.
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