How to become a park ranger at Ontario Parks

Applications for the 2024 season are open! Read on to learn about how you can spend your summer with Ontario Parks.

Calling all Ontario students!

Do you enjoy the outdoors and have an appreciation for Ontario’s natural and cultural resources?

Are you self-motivated, with a positive attitude and a desire to learn?

Do you enjoy working and interacting with the public?

Then this is the job for you!

Don’t miss the opportunity to apply for a position as a student park ranger with Ontario Parks this summer.

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Five friends, five departments, one park

Today’s post comes from Zuzanna, Alysa, Lyle, Jackson, and Emily: five friends who applied to Ontario Parks across the province and by a twist of fate, all got jobs at the same provincial park, 1,500 km (or 16 hours) from home!

Are you interested in joining us for the 2024 summer season? Applications are now open!

In early January of last year, we applied to work at parks across the province. Being friends with connections in southern Ontario, we were yearning for seasonal jobs characterized by adventure and wilderness.

After numerous interviews and phone calls, one by one we received job offers from the same park: Quetico Provincial Park.

Once he reviewed our resumes and interviews, our senior operations technician discovered the friendships and previous connections that we had to one another.

Upon consideration of our unique backgrounds, he placed us in distinct departments to align with our individual strengths.

We became five friends in five departments, all at the same provincial park.

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Weekend warriors: northern edition

This blog comes from park besties: Alysa Cortes and Zuzanna Radecki! They’re back for another recap of their weekend adventures living and working at a different provincial park.

This season, we moved 17 hours from home and 14 hours from our previous park, Killbear Provincial Park, to work at the world-renowned paddling paradise: Quetico Provincial Park!

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It’s Take Me Outside Day!

Written by Discovery Program Project Coordinator Jessica Stillman.

Teachers, did you know you can help your students be more engaged and enthusiastic in all areas of their learning by taking them outside?

Studies show that students who experience nature as part of the educational process score higher on tests in reading, writing, and math and have demonstrated better listening skills.

Not that you need any more reasons to get outside, but here are four more reasons to take your class outside for Take Me Outside Day:

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Keeping tabs on turtles in Southeastern Ontario

Over the years, Ontario Parks staff have created many blogs about turtles, their significance to the Ontario landscape, and why it’s important that we protect and support them.

You may even be familiar with our Turtle Protection Project! With seven of the eight turtle species found in Ontario being species-at-risk under the Ontario Endangered Species Act, 2007, we like to give them all the support and attention we can.

Well, today’s post is all about this season’s turtle protection efforts in our Southeast Zone, including a new project that was started this year…

Introducing Team Turtle!

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There and back again: a Quetico tale

Today’s blog comes from Quetico Provincial Park Canoe Route Technician Gavin Morito-Karn.

In 2019, I spent my summer paddling across a large chunk of the vastness of one of Canada’s waterways.

Brigitte Champaigne-Klassen (also a past member of Quetico’s staff) and I travelled from Cochrane, Alberta (just west of Calgary) to Nym Lake on the border of Quetico, approximately a 4,500 km journey.

The majority of those days were spent on unfamiliar waters that cut through prairie fields and man-made lakes.

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Fourth graders become species-at-risk superheroes!

Parks alone are not enough to save species at risk.

As we’ve continued our species-at-risk blog series this summer, we’ve been able to share stories of the amazing species that call parks home and the work being done to protect them.

Now we want to introduce you to the newest team of superheroes taking up the charge across Ontario – grade 4 students!

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A ghost in the attic

Today’s blog comes to us from Sam Alison, former Ontario Parks Gray Ratsnake researcher at Murphys Point Provincial Park

I must admit, as a seven year old, I was a little nervous about spending the night at my great grandmother’s cottage. At the family reunion, I had heard all about the seemingly mythical creature that lived in the attic…

…a creature so good at hiding, you’d never know where it was at any point in time.

…a creature so long, it could reach right around the door frame if it wanted to.

…a creature so mesmerizing, that everyone had a story to tell.

What was this creature? Where was it? I was hooked.

I spent our family vacation looking for this legend. Little did I know, this adventure would inspire my future career.

A university degree and many years later, I’m still searching for Canada’s longest snake species – the Gray Ratsnake.

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