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Jean-François Lauzon, the outdoor club’s president, also believes the fee will reduce the number of people using the park. “I guess we’re going into the age where we pay fees for everything, which I find regrettable.”

Lauzon said he often encounters families on the park’s snowshoe trails. “If there was a $7 fee per person, would these families be out there walking?”

The new snowshoe fees are less than half of what the NCC charges cross-country skiers, who have been paying to use Gatineau Park trails for 25 years. The snowshoe trail fees are lower because, unlike cross-country trails, they aren’t groomed, NCC spokesman Jean Wolff explained.

Those who buy cross-country ski season passes can use them to access snowshoe trails as well, Wolff said. But snowshoe trail season passes can’t be used on ski trails.

The NCC expects revenues of $60,000 this winter from the new fees, Wolff said, adding that the money will be used to further improve services for winter trails.

Over the past five years, services offered in Gatineau Parks for snowshoers have increased “exponentially,” Wolff said. Since 2012, the commission has expanded the park’s network of dedicated, marked trails for snowshoeing to 57 kilometres from 15.

The NCC offers a wide array of services to snowshoers, he said, including snow removal at parking lots, washrooms, patrols, shelters and fire pits, and access to overnight winter camping facilities.

During public consultations prior to the release of the NCC’s outdoor activity plan for Gatineau Park in 2012, members of the public raised the issue of equity in fees among user groups, Wolff said.