SKIING SLOPES
CLIMBING MOUNTAINS
AND
High visitor numbers impact more than just the environment and animals, but the overall visitor experience.
The tendency nowadays to wander in wilderness is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, overcivilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity and mountain parks and reservations are useful, not only as fountains of timber and irrigating waters, but as fountains of life.
– John Muir, American author and ecologist
Sunshine Village is one of Alberta’s most popular ski resorts to visit, but their room for growth is limited.
Sunshine recently signed a new lease with Parks Canada that limits them to a maximum of 8,500 skiers. The ski hill was previously allowed 6,500 skiers, but with 42 years before their lease expires, it’s hard to determine if a capacity of 8,500 allows enough room for future growth.
Kendra Scurfield, the brand and communications manager at Sunshine Village, believes winter tourism is vital despite summer being the more popular visiting season.
“Banff is primarily visited in the summertime and that’s when most people actually come, but winter tourism brings more resources into the economy,” she said. “It offers people longer jobs.”
The new set of guidelines for Sunshine set permanent limits to commercial development and allows the seizure of 61 hectares of land with “high ecological value” back to Parks Canada, among other criteria.
The sustainability and long-term future of Sunshine Village under the terms of the new guidelines is something that Scurfield is concerned about. “For us, it’s about the visitor experience and the environmental integrity on our forefront and everything that we do, but in order to do that, we need business certainty and long-lived assets,” she said.
“It’s a bit confusing for us because we are told to diversify the economy and that the government is all about diversification of the economy and getting Alberta out of just energy. But tourism has seen real growth and they are putting limitations on growth.”
Parking troubles have been the theme for Sunshine recently too. The ski hill’s road-side parking is notorious, but according to Scurfield, Parks Canada has turned down eight of Sunshine’s parking proposals in favour of its own: a 1,000-stall parking garage.
Scurfield said Sunshine has concerns over the parkade’s effect on the floodplain, wildlife and appearance—not to mention the upwards of $30 million price tag that Sunshine would have to pay out of its own pocket.
With all of the adventure and wilderness sitting just outside Calgary, Greg Danchuk, the visitor experience manager for Banff National Park, said they are working to promote other areas of the park to entice visitors away from the most congested areas.
Locations in Banff like Lake Louise, Lake Moraine and Johnston Canyon are popular “bucket list” destinations that attract tourists on a global scale. During the summer months, these locations are hit with large-scale crowds that Banff-local conservationist Harvey Locke said are being overwhelmed with people.
“At Moraine Lake one day when I was there last summer, it looked like an anthill with people crawling all over it. I've never seen anything like it,” said Locke.
For the best opportunity to experience these popular places, Danchuk recommends visiting at less traditional times, whether that means earlier, or later in the day, or during less popular months, like May or September.
Parks Canada is also influencing people to visit Yoho or Kootenay National Parks instead as they offer most of the same mountain experiences as Banff.
Danchuk also said Parks Canada is promoting less-known places to encourage visitors to plan a trip around other areas of the park that offer the same wilderness experience without the crowd.
Some of the lesser known places to visit include Taylor Lake and the backside of Sulphur Mountain.
“You can go to some of the lesser known places, which are just as compelling… so just trying to move people around and give them the best opportunity to access those places and to experience the Banff National Park.”
As a local to Banff, Locke sees the effects of large-scale tourism first hand. “Trails that I’ve been walking my whole life are now twice as wide as they used to be from people just trampling them,” said Locke.
But, the pressures on the environment aren’t the only issue created by large volumes of tourists. The quality of visitor’s experience is also at stake.
“What’s busy for a Western Canadian is not what’s busy for someone from a big city in Europe or Asia,” said Locke. “The concern I have is we’re starting to crowd Canadians out of their own national parks, both in terms of raw volume of people and the terms of cost ... People are getting squeezed out as we squeeze in more people.”
Locke said that national parks are about protecting nature and people experiencing protected nature but the vast number of people are a threat to both of those things. “I think it’s great that people come and enjoy our parks, but what’s on my mind is people have to have a quality experience and now that is being degraded,” said Locke.
One solution that could potentially alleviate some of the pressure on the park and the experience of visitors is placing a cap on the number of people.
“We could treat Banff National Park like anything else we value and say when it’s full you can’t come in,” said Locke. “The solution is to say, ‘Oh, we now have public transit,’ but that isn’t the solution to that problem. It just jams more people into the place by a different means.”
