Missing sign on Highway 93 ‘disappointing’
Dear Editor,
Have you noticed that sometime during the winter of 2011/2012, the major sign along the Icefields Parkway, announcing the transition between Jasper National Park and Banff National Park, for both northbound and southbound travellers, is missing/broken/gone? We are now into the second year that it has been missing.
As a tour guide, I have driven thousands of people up and down the Icefields Parkway, and each time, at the transition, which is also a great divide between Atlantic Ocean drainage and Pacific Ocean drainage, I can only tell my guests, who have contributed to the national parks fees through their costs of the tour, that Parks Canada obviously doesn’t care whether they replace the missing/broken/gone sign or not. At first I used the word “disappointing” when, the following summer, it still had not been replaced. During the second winter of its absence, I used the word “embarrassing” to my visitors. Now I simply use the the word “disgusting” when interpreting its absence, as that is the only option left.
I can very simply and truthfully explain to visitors from around the world that Parks Canada has received a sum of money to allow Brewsters (Viad Corp., USA) to build a clear-bottomed walkway over the rubble pile of the Sunwapta Canyon, and that Parks Canada can sell off three profit-making hot springs in three national parks and yet, for some reason inexplicable to an average old tour guide like me, they still can not afford to put up a road sign.
Kevin Hasson
Jasper, Alta.
Development and conservation: conflicting priorities
Dear Editor,
Anger and betrayal are the emotions which washed over me when I learned that Parks Canada might be considering allowing the development of overnight accommodation at Maligne Lake. This would fly in the face of the controversial proposal to close vast backcountry areas to alpine and nordic skiers in order to protect wildlife, specifically caribou.
Following the public meetings a few months ago, I wrote a letter in support of the unpopular proposal to close backcountry areas during winter months. I suggested that even if there is only a slight chance of success in protecting the last few caribou, and even if the dwindling caribou numbers were the fault of historically bad decisions and industry outside the parks, I still defended the proposal to close those areas.
How naïve of me to think that Parks Canada really was doing everything possible to protect the wildlife. The commercial expansionist direction—not just Maligne Valley but also at Marmot Basin—feels like a punch to the gut for those of us who expressed support for backcountry area closures.
Persistent rumours of overnight accommodation plans for the Maligne Valley are supported by a mysterious change in the Jasper National Park Management Plan. The draft plan in 2009 stated: “Prohibit new overnight commercial visitor accommodation in the Maligne Valley.” That statement is nowhere to be found in the final management plan of 2010.
Any contemplation of overnight accommodation at Maligne Lake will make a mockery of scientists who warn of incremental habitat loss. It will also take away any last vestiges of credibility that Parks Canada might still enjoy. How can Parks Canada be serious about protection of caribou and other wildlife when allowing ever more development in critical habitat areas such as Marmot Basin and the Maligne Valley?
Monika Schaefer
Jasper, Alta.
