parks-mcp

An anonymous, read-only MCP server for western-Canada park camping reservations. It lets an AI client list campgrounds, read details, check availability, and find vacancies across multiple park systems through one set of tools. Runs as a small Bun HTTP server (Streamable HTTP MCP transport), Dockerized.

Coverage (providers)

Each park has a provider-prefixed parkId (ab:…, bc:…, pc:…); the tools route automatically, so callers never deal with the underlying system. See SPEC.md for reverse-engineering notes.

Tools

Dates are ISO YYYY-MM-DD, America/Edmonton local. Every result carries booking URLs so you can jump straight to the reservation page.

Caching

Metadata (the campground list, descriptions, coordinates) barely changes, so it's cached for 7 days; availability changes often, so it's cached for 5 minutes. The cache is SQLite-backed and, when CACHE_DIR is set, persists to <CACHE_DIR>/cache.db — the deploy bind-mounts it so restarts don't lose it (a cold campground list takes ~7s to build; after that it's instant). Tune or disable via CAMPGROUND_CACHE_TTL / AVAILABILITY_CACHE_TTL (seconds; 0 disables).

Backcountry is blended in

Backcountry campgrounds (e.g. Point, in the Kananaskis Lake area) appear right alongside front-country ones in list_campgrounds with type: "backcountry" and a bc:<areaId>:<zone> parkId. The availability tools accept that id transparently and read the trip-permit calendar (singleTripPermitCalendar.do), returning the zone's open dates and permit quota (e.g. "6 of 20"). Callers don't need to know front-country vs backcountry — it's the same tools either way.

Related MCP server: National Parks MCP Server

Run with Docker

docker compose up --build -d        # serves on :3000
# or:
docker build -t parks-mcp .
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -e MCP_PATH=/your/secret/path parks-mcp

MCP endpoint: http://<host>:3000/burrow/9f3a7c2e1d/mcp (override via MCP_PATH). / serves an interactive map of all campgrounds (pins colored by jurisdiction, shaped by type, with copyable lat/long, booking links, and lazily-loaded descriptions); /api/campgrounds, /api/campground?id=, and /api/stats back it. Coordinates come from each park system where published; for the rest, a baked lookup table (src/data/coords.json, 386/387 parks) fills the gaps — sourced from the BC Parks open data API (authoritative for all BC parks), Alberta's official facility pages, and park-aware OpenStreetMap geocoding for Parks Canada. Website coords always win over the baked table. /healthz is a health check; robots.txt disallows everything.

⚠️ Where you run it matters

The site is fronted by a Queue-it waiting room. From a residential / trusted IP the full flow works (verified — listing, availability, and vacancies all return live data). From some datacenter IP ranges (notably Cloudflare Workers, and possibly some cloud VPSs) Queue-it never grants its durable "accepted" cookie, so every request re-queues; flat pages still work but the multi-step availability flow can't complete and returns a clear QueueBlockedError. Run this on a host whose IP isn't flagged (a home server / self-hosted box is ideal). This is why it's a self-hosted container rather than a Cloudflare Worker.

Configure your MCP client

Point a Streamable-HTTP-capable MCP client at the endpoint, e.g.:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "alberta-parks": { "url": "http://localhost:3000/burrow/9f3a7c2e1d/mcp" }
  }
}

Develop

bun install
bun test            # parser unit tests against captured HTML fixtures
bun run typecheck
bun run dev         # watch mode on http://localhost:3000

# end-to-end: drives the MCP endpoint with the SDK client against live upstream
node test/live-client.mjs

Layout

• src/server.ts — Bun/node:http server: routing, session-managed Streamable HTTP transport.

• src/mcp.ts — MCP tool definitions (wraps the service layer).

• src/parks/client.ts — HTTP client: Queue-it handshake, cookie jar, redirect following.

• src/parks/parse.ts — HTML parsers (campground list, availability grid).

• src/parks/service.ts — tool logic (list / availability / vacancies / info).

• src/landing.ts — the Leaflet campground map (homepage).

• src/providers/ — provider registry, shared types, and the Camis (BC/Parks Canada) provider.

• src/data/coords.json — baked geocoded fallback coordinates.

• test/ — parser tests + fixtures + the live MCP client.

Notes

• Read-only. No login, no booking, no credentials.

• Unofficial reverse engineering; keep request volume low. Personal use.

• HTML scraping is inherently brittle — parsers pin to stable hooks (siteListLabel, loopName, avail_<siteId>_<day>); a fixture test guards them.