After 15 years of planning and construction, the Badlands Parkway was finally opened.

The parkway, which is located in the east block of the Grasslands National Park was unveiled at the annual Badlands Blast event.

Adriana Bacheschi, the Saskatchewan south superintendent for Parks Canada, said that idea of building the scenic road started in 2004.

"Mostly through conversations with some of our neighbours and regional stakeholders, and some of the past landowners. That is an absolutely beautiful area of the park," she said. "The idea was that we were trying to create the opportunity in an environmentally responsible way for visitors to come and experience the park. In a way that people in vehicles could do it. Before that only hiking through very serious hiking trails is how people could get there, but the idea of doing this road allowed visitors to have a very different experience but still in a way that was very responsible and protected the environment around it." 

The road is paved and is a single lane as Parks Canada wanted to limit the impact that it had on the landscape. 

"There are pullout areas. You can drive with an RV, with a car, with anything. It's something that people are coming to the east block of Grasslands National Park now can come and camp in the campground, and for the ones who are not the hardcore hikers, they can still experience a big part of the park, in a more comfortable way. This is an experience for anyone." 

Bacheschi said it took such a long time to get the road built was because they wanted to make sure they were doing it in the safest way possible. 

"Included the initial public consultations, and because it took quite a long time to really consider all the impacts of the project including the species at risk, ecological resources, the visitor, any concerns that stakeholders had, it took us a long time," she said. "We had a very lengthy environmental assessment process. Grasslands have many species at risk, and we are very concerned about doing things in a way that minimize the impact on them." 

The construction of the road started two years ago, and Bacheschi said that she feels the project ended up being a win-win for protection of the park and the visitors.