On Monday the province’s campgrounds will reopen but COVID-19 restrictions will keep half the sites closed
Campgrounds in Alberta’s national parks will remain closed until at least June 21.
Meanwhile, British Columbia and Saskatchewan have followed Alberta and closed their campgrounds to out of province visitors.
If the Crown Land Camping Alberta Facebook group, recently launched by Calgarian Ryan Epp, is any indication, many Albertans are looking for alternatives.
In the seven weeks since launching the page, Epp has welcomed nearly 29,000 members with more joining all the time.
“I started it up basically looking to find some new people to go camping with,” Epp said. “I was expecting to get maybe 50, 60 people to join up.
“We’re still growing at almost a thousand a day,” he told CBC News. “It’s been crazy.”
Epp believes the interest in his group is connected to conventional campgrounds being closed or restricted.
Ryan Epp and his friends circle the wagons at an undisclosed spot somewhere on Alberta’s public lands. (Ryan Epp)
Now he’s sharing his knowledge with people who have never used Crown land before, something the 46-year-old has been doing since he was a kid.
“We’d hit the forestry trunk road with our tents and some other family friends,” he said.
As an adult, Epp upgraded to a tent trailer and he’s recently purchased a hard-walled trailer.
“It’s got bathroom facilities and a water tank and everything, it’s a little more comfortable,” he said. “I’ve got a generator to supply power so that way I’m all set-up.”
It’s a long way from the five-gallon pail he once used for a toilet.
“There’s no services, so there’s no water, no electricity, no toilet facilities,” Epp said. “If you head out there you have to have all that with you.”
Camping on crown land usually can mean fewer neighbours. (Ryan Epp)
Epp is also quick to remind members of the etiquette and rules when it comes to Crown land camping.
“The big one with a lot of us is we try to haul out more than we take in,” he said. “We look for garbage, we’ll pick it up and bring it out.”
There are options for those looking for peace and quiet and options for those who might want to let loose and make a little noise.
“It’s so much more quiet,” he said. “If you want to make more noise you can because there’s not really anyone right beside you that you’re going to disturb.”
Epp says there are also Crown land camping areas ideal for specific hobbies like quading or fishing. The tricky part is finding those spots and Epp is fielding a lot of questions from people wanting to know where to go.
Albertans may have to get off the beaten path to find those special camping spots on public land. (Ryan Epp)
“We all have our secret spots that we’re not going to divulge to anybody,” he said. “The fun of it is going out and scouting out and finding your own secret spot to go to because there’s thousands upon thousands of kilometres to travel and find these throughout Crown land.”
CJ Blye, a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta in the faculty of kinesiology, sport and recreation, agrees.
“There are a lot of places; actually 60 per cent of the province is public land,” Blye said.
“We do have a number of wildland provincial parks that are north of Edmonton and then most of our public land use zones follow along that Rocky Mountain corridor all the way down to the south of the province.”
Much of the land is not easily accessible and Blye encourages people to check regulations before heading out.
Each public-land-use zone has its own rules and regulations, which are more important than ever, Blye said.
A room with a view. (Ryan Epp)
“The pressure that we’re going to be placing on our natural areas will be more significant because we’re going to see more folks wanting to get out,” she said.
“We want to be really careful that we’re not overloading our natural environments.
“Leave no trace camping and leave no trace travel is a great way to look at how we can be in these areas and reduce our impact,” she said.
Blye encourages people to check the online information provided by the provincial government and Alberta Parks before they head out.
Nobody from the province would talk about the pressure on Crown land.
In an email, Jess Sinclair, press secretary for the minister of Environment and Parks, said that over the May long weekend, staff saw an increase in public land use in parts of southern and central Alberta.
“It remains to be seen if campers that traditionally use our provincial parks will increasingly move onto public land for their fill of outdoor recreation,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair urges users pack out what they pack in and limit stays in one spot to 14 days.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
