Google Maps users have noticed and started documenting the way parks are being labeled in B.C. and Canada.
Screenshots provided to Global News show B.C. provincial parks are identified as “state parks.”
TikTok user Samantha Gietema documented the change after one of her friends posted about it on Facebook.
“I went to go look for myself on Google Maps, and sure enough, a bunch of the provincial parks had been changed to state parks, and when I went to edit to suggest an edit, I had noticed that the provincial park category had been completely removed from Google entirely,” she told Global News.
She thought it was a glitch but then noticed dozens of people asking the same question in the Google Maps Help Center.
“I personally don’t know exactly when it started, but I’m seeing posts dated back as far as only a couple of days ago, so it seems like it’s quite recent,” Gietema said.
“It’s something that people have recently noticed, and with what had gone on with Google Maps intentionally mislabeling the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, I can’t help but wonder if there’s something like that going on in Canada.”
State parks in America are protected areas of land that also fall under the name of state forests, national parks, landmarks, national grasslands and more.
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Parks Canada is responsible for protecting and managing the country’s 37 national parks and 11 national park reserves.
Provincial governments protect and manage parks in their province and territorial parks are maintained by Northwest Territories Parks.
Tamara Davidson, B.C.’s minister of Environment and Parks, told Global News in a statement that BC Parks is aware “of the recent concern around the label of ‘state park’ on Google Business listings for provincial parks in B.C.”
While some users pointed out that provincial parks can no longer be labelled as such, Davidson said it is their understanding that ‘state park’ has always been the default Google setting.
Google Canada confirmed that detail in a statement saying, “We have not made any recent changes to the way we label parks in Canada — the vast majority of these parks have had their existing labels for several years. We’re actively working to update labels for parks in Canada to avoid confusion.”
Davidson said they have requested a unique label option of ‘provincial park.’
Google Canada said its mapping system has many labels for parks in the system and because state parks and provincial parks are both managed by the government they are sometimes used interchangeably in its backend system.
“We understand the concerns this has raised in the context of recent events — and let’s be clear, we will never be the 51st state,” Davidson said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments about erasing the border between the two countries.
Gietema said it’s a matter of pride and she isn’t sure she buys Google’s explanation.
“What I’ve seen myself and what many Canadians are seeing is that provincial parks were labeled as provincial parks a few days ago, and now they’re not,” she said.
There’s other people that have been screen recording and taking screenshots that are only a few hours in between, and at first they’re provincial parks and now they’re being changed to state parks.
“So potentially Google, you know, maybe it always was able to see parks. I had never seen it. And thousands of other Canadians had never seen it before either. And we’re noticing a huge difference. We’re seeing different search results for different users, and it’s just a little bit suspicious in my opinion.”
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