Kokanee Creek Provincial Park Visitor Centre - Balfour, BC - Tourist Information Centers - Visitor Centers on Waymarking.com

Facilities include boat launch, campfires, drinking water, electrical hookups, group camping, picnic areas, pit and flush toilets, sani-station/dump, playground, showers and vehicle accessible camping. See This Page for Fees, opening and closing dates for each campground, reservations and campground sizes.

With over a kilometre of sandy beaches and three campsites, Kokanee Creek Provincial Park has provincial significance and is the number one choice for tourists’ coming to the West Kootenays. There is always lots to do with an adventure playground, visitor centre, spawning channel, boat launch, group camp site, viewing platform, hiking trails and a marina nearby.

Want more? All within an hour’s drive you can explore historic Nelson, Ainsworth Hot Springs, Balfour Golf Club, Kaslo with the SS Moyie stern wheeler and finally Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. Discover south central B.C. but save some time for Kokanee Creek Provincial Park. If you don’t, you’re going to wish you did.

Special Features: Kokanee Creek canyon and old growth western cedar and grand fir.

Nature and Culture

History - Kokanee Creek Park is located on the old “Busk” estate site. Charles W. Busk was a wealthy English gentleman who came to Nelson in the late 1800’s. He had acquired a large tract of land with lake frontage 14 miles from Nelson. From plans drawn by English architects, Busk built a large mansion that once sat on a rise a short way up Kokanee Glacier Road. As a country squire and gracious gentlemen, Mr. Busk enjoyed entertaining guests but also had many interests in surveying, mining, fruit ranching and Scouting. He lived an eloquent, lavish life style. After 1913 the romance of his new way of life had dulled and it is estimated he went through three fortunes. Sadly, within a few years he died, disillusioned by most of his ventures, withdrawn and ignored by friends whom he once had entertained so lavishly. The park as it is seen today was originally established in 1955.

Cultural Heritage - Archaeological evidence in the park indicates seasonal campsites used by First Nations people. Remains of European settlement include evidence of old homesteads and an early estate. Nearby are mining ghost towns and village museums displaying the Kootenay area history.

Conservation - With 257 hectares, Kokanee Creek Park has extensive sandy beaches and a large delta area. Backed by a gentle rising upland, this area gives way to the forested slopes of the Slocan Range of the Selkirk Mountains. Kokanee Creek bisects the landscape to form a steep canyon. The park protects the active alluvial creek fan with its marshes and extensive sandspit. Both the Englemann spruce/subalpine fir and the interior cedar/hemlock biogeoclimatic zones occur here. Prime growing conditions within the park produce a diverse mix of vegetation with magnificent specimens of fir, hemlock and pine. There are both pure and mixed stands of deciduous trees as well as many of the common understory plants including wild rose, queen’s cup and skunk cabbage. Flowers, trees and shrubs are part of the park’s natural heritage, please do not damage or remove them. Wildlife - The Kokanee Creek Delta ecology includes many species of plants and animals. A variety of habitats support coyotes, beaver, whitetail and mule deer and a large number of birds ranging from the tiny Rufous hummingbird to the great blue heron. Many of the birds are migratory but kingfishers, woodpeckers and dippers can by seen throughout the year. The park also has important man-made and some natural spawning channels for kokanee salmon, which spawn in large numbers in the late summer.
From The Park

Park Map (PDF)

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