Selling Scenery
Banff National Park and the impossible task of pleasing everyone
Producers:
Stephanie Babych
Olivia Baychu
Thomas Bogda Brittany Willsie
For more information about the producers check the ABOUT page.
The ride from Calgary to Banff may be a little straight and narrow, but by the time drivers descend the hill near Morley and the landscape opens to sprawling foothills laying in the shadow of the Rockies, eyes are fixed at the horizon of jagged peaks.
It’s a fairly brief trip and one that Calgarians and tourists alike enjoy making. One of the main draws of Calgary, and indeed Alberta and Canada, is the mountains and national parks – a patchwork of preserved nature, summits, ski hills and mountain towns that beckon us to enjoy.
Yet, for those who don’t pay attention, Banff National Park has been facing recent pressure over the number of visitors it’s taking in and people are questioning how much is too much. It’s a debate that has been around since the park was created but the new wave has the added addition of social media sharing, geo-tagging and an ever-increasing understanding of the human footprint on the mountain environment.
Ideas of visitor caps have been tossed around by some, including Harvey Locke, a leading voice on conservation and limiting use in Banff National Park.
“In Banff, we’ve really got a park that’s bursting at the seams when it comes to the amount of tourism that’s here and we have to start really thinking about managing the number of people,” Locke said.
A growing human population and Calgary’s International Airport tie into to Banff’s “aggressive” marketing, Locke said. He’s happy to see people interested in visiting Banff but calls on Parks Canada to work on controlling the volume.
“What’s busy for a Western Canadian is not what’s busy for someone from a big city in Europe or Asia. So, the perceptions of busyness vary culturally, and the concern I have is that we’re starting to crowd Canadians out of their own national parks in terms of raw volumes of people – and in terms of cost,” Locke said.
“It is a national park that belongs to the people of Canada and we are not coming to grips with this problem.”
Visitor experience manager for Banff National Park, Greg Danchuk, said there’s been a 30 per cent increase in visitors within the last five years, with numbers gradually climbing but then dropping three per cent in 2018/19 to a projected 4,068,946 visitors. Danchuk said this is a pattern the park has seen in the past before.
“There have been increases and then there’ll be more decreases, a slight increase, slight decrease,” he said. “There’s a lot of factors that play into how the visitation changes.”
Danchuk said the priority of Parks Canada is to preserve the ecological integrity of the park so that people can continue to enjoy it and make a connection with nature.
“[It’s] very important for people’s wellbeing, for the tourism industry and for people understanding the importance of this place … It works together, having visitors being able to be here, understand it, leaving with a better sense of what it is and a better sense of why it needs to be protected into the future.”
That cooperation of visitor knowledge and ecological responsibility that Danchuk talks about isn’t that simple, according to Marco Musiani, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Calgary. The interests of the people and environment are in conflict, and he doesn’t think Parks Canada will ever resolve it.
“There is never going to be an easy fix to the interests of conservation,” he said. Banff may be a world leader on the issue but they can still do better.
Ultimately, Locke believes national parks are about two things: “Protecting nature and about people experiencing protected nature.” This is why he believes things need to change to ensure places like Banff National Park do not become overrun by tourists.
“People need to come and have a quality experience and now that is being degraded,” said Locke.
Banff National Park and Parks Canada reached a point of critical mass over 20 years ago when they decided visitor numbers must be sacrificed for the sake of the park’s health. Now, visitor numbers are on a trajectory to reach those same highs. With or without the new improvements and changes they’ve made, we seem to be on a familiar path. Are we doomed to make the same mistakes with our park over and over?
