Parks Canada also offers novice campers the opportunity to get their training while spending the night outdoors using its gear. Where appropriate, those sessions provide for a full Canadian experience with canoe and fishing lessons. Ontario Parks even has “graduate” courses that include “tarping skills” and “camping kitchen tricks.”

Ed Jager, the director of visitor experience at Parks Canada, told me the program dated back to 2006, when the service noticed that camping was slightly declining. (Before any recreational vehicle owners get worked up, we’re only talking about traditional tent camping here.)

Research conducted by Parks Canada, he said, showed that the biggest barriers for most people to camping were lack of knowledge about how to do it and lack of equipment.

“So we wanted to give people a context where they could learn to do it right and be comfortable with it,” Mr. Jager said. “Camping is sort of an essential Canadian experience.”