Land Access

Access to land is not a privilege but a prerequisite for guiding. By ensuring fair, responsible access, the ACMG can uphold the highest standards of risk management, environmental responsibility, and client service—while continuing to deliver social, cultural, and economic benefits across Canada’s mountain and wilderness landscapes. The ACMG advocates for stable, transparent, and fair access to public lands for certified professional guides and their clients. Such access must balance recreational use, conservation, cultural values, and safety considerations, while ensuring that guiding contributes positively to the broader community.

Access to Land for Commercial Guiding Activities

The Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG) recognizes that access to land is fundamental to the guiding profession. Without reliable access to mountains, parks, and wilderness areas, professional guides cannot deliver risk-managed, high-quality experiences for their clients or sustain their livelihoods.

Why Access Matters

1. Foundation of the Profession

Guides cannot practice their craft without access to mountains, parks, and wilderness areas. Access is the literal workplace of the guiding profession. Restricted access undermines the ability to deliver services, generate income, and maintain a sustainable livelihood and limits opportunities for clients.

2. Client Experience & Risk Management
Commercial guiding relies on having diverse, suitable terrain options to match client skill levels, objectives, and conditions. Limited access forces guides into fewer areas, which can create congestion, compromise the quality of the client experience, and, in some cases, make managing risk more difficult. This also hinders the ability of traditionally excluded and marginalized populations looking to connect with outdoor activities through professional guides.
3. Environmental Stewardship
Professional guides are trained to minimize environmental impacts and often act as stewards of the land. Responsible backcountry use and stewardship not only protects the overall mountain experience for the long term, it helps to safeguard future access to the public and to guides. Part of stewardship involves practicing leave-no-trace principles, adhering to land manager regulations and requirements, modelling responsible practices and educating others when possible. Professional guides are expected to be leaders in safe travel and in environmental protection.
4. Economic & Community Benefits
Guiding contributes to local economies through tourism, employment, and partnerships with retail, accomodation, and transport services. If land access is restricted, these benefits shrink, impacting not only guides but also rural and mountain communities.
5. Certainty & Planning
Stable, transparent access policies (permits, tenure agreements, land-use frameworks) allow guiding businesses to plan, invest, and grow responsibly. Uncertainty in access makes long-term business development risky, discouraging investment in training, infrastructure, and staff.
6. Equity & Professional Standards
Commercial access frameworks help differentiate trained, certified guides from informal or unregulated operators. When access is structured and tied to professional standards, clients receive safer, higher-quality experiences, and the profession maintains credibility.

ACMG Commitment
The ACMG is committed to:

Collaborating with governments, land managers, Indigenous communities, and other stakeholders to develop fair access systems.
Promoting policies that recognize the professional standards of ACMG and IFMGA certification.
Supporting environmental stewardship and reconciliation through responsible guiding practices.
Advocating for certainty in permitting and tenure systems so that guides can plan, invest, and sustain their businesses.

_{“Commercial guiding services provide a number of benefits to park visitors, park staff and the park environment. The services of a professional guide may provide the only means for many unskilled or inexperienced park visitors to safely and comfortably, visit and appreciate more remote areas of the parks. Guides often take the opportunity to inform clients about the region's physical and cultural characteristics, as well as educate them on issues related to ecological integrity, good environmental practices, and park management. Many guiding operations have a strong focus on outdoor skill development and safety leading to an increase in the number of experienced and skilled backcountry users, which in turn, results in fewer incidents that may require park rescue services. Finally, the presence of skilled, professional guides provides an additional measure of safety for backcountry visitors, even for independent users. Guides have taken part in rescues managed by the warden service, have performed rescues independent from parks staff (usually for non-guided parties), and have voluntarily taken on the responsibility to guide independent visitors through difficult weather and water conditions.”}
^{Screening Report for Land-based Commercial Guiding Activities in the Mountain National Parks of Canada, October 2009}