Parks club pops up at U of R

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author: matt wincherauk | editor-in-chief

credit kate ryan

 

Student club celebrating national parks has big plans

The University of Regina is about to see a lot of its newest club in the coming weeks: the UR Parks Canada Club.

Only officially founded on Oct. 31, the club of nearly ten members is already gearing up to offer some interesting opportunities to students that wish to experience more of Canada’s parks. The Carillon sat down with club president Clark McMaster and vice-president Fearghus Vincent to get a better idea of what the club was about, and what they hope to do. McMaster was excited about the goals they had laid out, and how they could benefit the U of R community.

“We just got excited about getting people outside, teaching people what we love to do,” said McMaster, “as well as helping out with the nature conservancy in our area, and really teaching people about nature and conservation in general and getting involved with Parks Canada.”

Vincent commented further on Parks Canada, noting how helpful they’ve been in the process of creating the U of R branch, which is now one of 26 university park clubs in Canada.

“[Parks Canada] is a really good organization and we’re happy to partner with them in this venture,” Vincent noted. “They’ve been super supportive of us throughout this process.”

The process of creating the club was surprisingly simple, and while they only attempted to create the club a couple weeks ago. Vincent told the Carillon that everything started when he tagged McMaster in one of Parks Canada’s Facebook posts.

“It all started when I saw a post on Facebook where Parks Canada was talking about starting Parks Clubs at our universities. I tagged Clark in it asking if we should, and they responded saying we definitely should, and they’d love to have us. They didn’t have any clubs in Saskatchewan, so they were excited for us to do it. So, we had a phone conference with them a couple days after that, and they set us up with this big network.”

The newly minted group quickly started planning events for the U of R community, and will be taking advantage of a great opportunity afforded to them by Canada Parks. Vincent noted that they will be putting on an event at John Archer Library featuring a couple of Canada’s biggest names in conservation, on Nov. 21 from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

“We will get to talk to [Minister of Environment and Climate Change] Katherine McKenna as well as the lead underwater archeologist from the Franklin Expedition Brandy Lockhart, who’s going to be talking about what she does, what she did on the Franklin expedition, and how she got started,” Vincent told the Carillon. “We’re also hoping to have a movie night later on, showing a Parks Canada movie, as well as camping, getting people out into our parks.”

This Parks Canada event will also be shared on the UR Parks Canada Club Facebook page, which will be broadcasted via Facebook live, where students can ask conservationists questions. The experts will be talking about the groundbreaking results of their recent Franklin Expedition. The club noted that students who are involved in mapping, like geology, GIS, or geography students, will be particularly interested in tuning in.

While the club is focused on their upcoming November events, they’re also looking into camping opportunities next semester, as well as in the spring, with the intention of introducing U of R students to some of the parks here in Regina, as well as a canoeing trip. If students are worried about camping in the winter, don’t worry; Vincent insists that it is fun. We’ll just have to take his word for it.

The UR Parks Canada Club will be tabling in the Riddell Centre sometime next week, where students can get additional information, and get to know the members of the club. Students can also contact urparkscanada@gmail.com for more information.

 

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