A group in eastern Ontario has an ambitious plan to designate a large swath of land as a dark sky preserve—an area that actively protects against light pollution and preserves the natural darkness of the night sky.
It’s not just about ideal stargazing conditions—dark sky preserves are beneficial to both humans and animals. Research suggests that light pollution at night can affect migratory and mating patterns for wildlife, including bees, bats, insects, bears and deer.
John Criswick is founder of the NWNC Dark-Sky Project, a group of 14 volunteers that’s working towards getting specific regions along the Rideau Canal system officially recognized as a Dark Sky Community, including the areas of Narrows Lock, Westport, Newboro, and Chaffey’s Lock, a region halfway between Ottawa and Kingston.
“It’s pristine and dark already, and this group is just trying to lay the stake in the ground and preserve that going forward,” says Criswick.
The group launched in February of 2024 and has been working to get the NWNC region declared a preserve through DarkSky International, a non-profit that seeks to restore the nighttime environment. (In 2023, DarkSky certified Parc national du Mont-Tremblant in Quebec as an international dark sky park.)
The first step is to get “community certifications” for the Westport and Rideau Lakes areas, which Criswick hopes to secure by next year. The project leaders have been meeting with municipalities to explain the benefits of dark sky certifications, including boosting tourism and helping local ecosystems.
“The effort is in defining, regulating, and implementing lighting, and especially with municipalities,” says Criswick. For street lighting, the group advocates for shaded lamps that don’t shine light upwards, and the use of softer lighting in tones of reddish yellow rather than blue LED lights.
“It has all these benefits, one of the main ones being saving energy costs, but the umbrella benefit is people know it’s a dark area and they will come as a tourist,” he says.
Dark sky tourism is a growing trend in the travel industry, as tourists flock to destinations that boast unpolluted night skies to experience pristine stargazing and other celestial events. According to Booking.com’s annual travel predictions for 2025—a survey of more than 27,000 travellers—62 per cent said they would consider visiting darker sky destinations this year.
Certified dark sky preserves are added to a virtual map, which attracts visitors.
After community certifications are established in 2026, the group will then set their sights even higher: they hope to certify two tourism regions of Ontario as dark sky preserves. This includes Region 9 of southeastern Ontario and Region 11, which covers the Haliburton Highlands to the Ottawa Valley. Combined, it covers a total area of 42,000 square kilometres with a population of 530,000 people.
“That’s a big undertaking,” says Criswick. “But once people out there realize it’s a dark area, they will come.”
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