Top tourist attractions - three territories

October 30, 2012

The Sun media chain conducted an on line survey of the Top Attraction of each province and territory. The results are both surprising and informative.

The Sun media includes newspapers in Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto and Winnipeg. The online survey was conducted on 30-Oct-2012 on online versions of the Sun newspapers for those cities.
The results were pulled off at Noon eastern - sample size of less than 6,000, about the same for each territory. Each respondent rates one of 5 attractions for each territory and gets one ‘vote’ .

The results are shown in the attached table.

• The most popular attraction is viewing the aurora borealis.
• Seeing Baffin Island is highly rated for Nunavut and seeing Dawson City (Klondike Sites) for Yukon.
• The most unattractive choice was seeing the Legislative Assemblies in Nunavut and NWT.
• The Northwest Passage Territorial Trail is not a park in the conventional sense. Located in and around the hamlet of Gjoa Haven on King William Island, it is an informative walking tour that provides historical details about the famous quest of numerous European explorers to discover the Northwest Passage and their search for answers concerning the disappearance of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition of 1845.
• Kluane Park and Wood Buffalo Park were the highest rated parks in the survey.

Commentary

The survey was crude and imperfect (just a few larges urban centres) but with almost 6,000 respondents, significant. Probably most respondents have never been to the north.  Some of the attractions listed are inaccessible (Ft.Selkirk) or expensive to reach (Baffin Island). Yet there are some salient ideas.

• For the NWT the fact that aurora borealis is rated highly is important, especially since it would be a Fall/Winter tourist draw. The NWT has marketed aurora borealis viewing to Japanese tourists, what about to southern Canadians ?
• For Yukon Dawson and the Klondike is the biggest attraction. Parks Canada has downsized its workforce in a big way in the territory. For instance, the tours of the No.4 dredge will no longer be carried out by Parks employees. Perhaps the private sector could step into the breach and offer tours ?
• For Nunavut, the whole Franklin Expedition story could draw a lot of visitors to the Northwest Passage Territorial Trail. The federal government is funding research work to find the lost Franklin Expedition vessel—why not tie it into a tourism campaign ?

Sources

• a)http://www.edmontonsun.com/2012/10/23/what-is-the-top-attraction-in-each-canadian-province



• b)http://www.nunavuttourism.com/northwest_passage_trail.aspx