Free park passes lead to spike in Point Pelee visitors

Free access to Canada's national parks led to an early spike visitors at Point Pelee, according to park officials.

The southern most Canadian park had more than 5,000 visitors in the first nine days of January, which is a 25-30 per cent bump in traffic, explainedMoniqueOltrop,visitor experience manager with Parks Canada.

• Demand for free 2017 passes overwhelms Parks Canada website

"It was really nice to see people coming out to enjoy the park," she said.

Point Pelee is currently closed for a deer cull, but after it reopens on Jan. 23. Oltrop expects the rise in visitors to continue.

Park officials will also be adding more shuttle trips to take visitors to the point.

Despite being one of the country's smallest national parks, Point Peleecanstill hold "a few thousand people" comfortably, Oltrop explained, saying staff strongly urgevisitors follow park rules when they visit.

"We are monitoring the visitor patterns and we will make any adjustments that we need to in order to ensure people have a good visit and also that we're keeping our ecosystems safe," she said.

More than 300,000 people visited Point Pelee for the day in 2016, but park staff saidthere's still plenty of space for everyone to enjoy.