The door is officially open to summer sightseeing and adventure activities at Banff’s Mount Norquay – and the move is drawing praise from business and tourism groups and fire from conservationists.
Conservationists say they are not surprised, but completely disappointed, that Parks Canada has chosen to ignore the history of previous planning that clearly intended to set limits for the ski area, including giving up summer use.
Specifically, they point to an agreement in which the former owners of Norquay, Banff Lifts Ltd., gave up summer use in exchange for development of Mystic Ridge as part of a 1989 long-range planning process.
“This is a complete betrayal of public process,” said Mike McIvor, president of the Bow Valley Naturalists. “How can we be certain that where limits have been agreed to or determined, those will stay in place?”
Finalized new site guidelines for development and use at Norquay were released on Monday (Oct. 17). They set up the conditions under which Parks Canada would consider proposals advanced through a long-range plan (see story on page 4 for the full details on the finalized site guidelines).
Norquay wants to bring back summer use, with hopes of using the North American chair to whisk visitors to the teahouse, as well as developing a guided via ferrata operation on the cliffs above.
Via ferrata is an adventure activity, popular in Europe, which would see the construction of a mountain path fixed with cables, ladders and bridges to Norquay’s upper cliffs.
If approved by Parks Canada as part of a long-range plan, summer use would run between June 15 and Oct. 15 and draw an estimated 16,000 visitors over the five-month period.
But the agreement the environmental community refers to is clearly stated in a letter from the former owner of Mount Norquay, Arthur Haenni, to a former park superintendent and the Bow Valley Naturalists.
In that letter, Haenni said that after a great deal of negotiation during development of the 1989 long-range plan, Norquay realized they had to make some concessions in its overall operation if they were able to convince Parks Canada of the need to expand the winter ski operation.
“The only way we could advance our ski area proposal was to promise a reduction of impact on environmentally sensitive areas like Widow-Maker and the area around Cliff House,” said Haenni in the 1996 letter.
“This could only be done by sacrificing our summer operations. The assertion that giving up summer use was simply a business decision we made independent of Parks Canada demands is misleading,” he added.
“We had to give something in order to get the additional terrain we needed for our expanded winter operation. Summer use was all we had to trade… environmental opposition to the expanded winter operation was neutralized by this trade off.”
Pam Veinotte, superintendent of Banff National Park, said policies evolve over time, and the trade-off referred to by the environmental community was 22 years ago.
Since that time, she said, a new ski area management plan was approved in 2006, indicating that changes to existing use, or new summer use, can be considered at all ski areas under certain conditions.
“People should view that as a partial snapshot of what was happening 22 years ago,” said Veinotte.
“We certainly respect that some people, some groups, don’t support the policy, but policy does evolve over time,” she said
Veinotte said Parks would consider summer use of a lift and potential new recreational activities if advanced in Norquay’s long-range plan, but only subject to a series of conditions aimed at generating environmental gains.
She said some of those conditions include reducing traffic levels on the Norquay Road, which bisects a critical wildlife corridor, keeping people off the mid slopes where grizzlies forage, and vegetation management.
“We want to see potential for ecological improvements… and certainly there are some very strict terms that are required to achieve that,” said Veinotte.
The finalized site guidelines aim to give Mount Norquay long-term business security and an ability to compete with other ski hills in an increasingly competitive market outside the national parks.
Peter Sudermann, vice-president and managing partner of Mount Norquay, said carefully managed summer use is “critical to Mount Norquay’s future.
“Norquay is the smaller of the three Banff area ski areas and, although it’s a viable winter operation, there are ongoing challenges with costs,” he said.
“When you look at the ski season, you gear up for it, and then it’s 90 days out of the year.”
Sudermann said the ski hill has already purchased three buses to transport people from the townsite to the hill, although the details have not been hammered out yet on whether it’s free or a paid service for all.
He said the hope is the transportation plan will reduce private vehicles on the Norquay Road, which bisects the Cascade wildlife corridor on the north side of the Trans-Canada Highway.
And, he said, with planned vegetation management such as prescribed burns, the hope is to attract grizzly bears and other animals to areas on the hill where there is little to no human traffic in summer.
“I can’t see us putting hundreds of thousands of people at Norquay in summer,” said Sudermann.
“It’s not like we’re Sulphur Mountain. The teahouse has a capacity of about 40 people, so you can’t have endless people riding the chairs. Everything will be carefully managed.”
Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen said she believes summer use at Mount Norquay will provide another attraction for visitors to Banff.
“I think all Banffites have a soft spot for Norquay. We understand that all ski areas are instrumental to the success of the visitor destination, but certainly Norquay has always been known as the local hill,” she said.
“Year-round use for visitors to the national park is important for it to continue to be presented as a world-class tourism destination; so as long as any of the plans put forward are within these site guidelines, I would welcome that.”
Conservationists say Parks Canada is using the ‘gain game’ to rationalize its decision to open the door to new activities and expansion, such as the leasehold reduction which is a line on a map, but still under Parks jurisdiction.
Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) Conservation Initiative officials say the site guidelines set the stage for a “considerable and unacceptable level” of expansion and development for a ski hill in Canada’s premiere national park.
Wendy Francis, Y2Y’s program director, said Parks Canada has no responsibility in its mandate to ensure the economic well being of the ski area or any other business that has the privilege to operate within a national park.
She said Parks has crossed the line of its legal mandate and too closely aligned itself with the interests of those it is intended to regulate, rather than the interests of Canadians.
“The guidelines are a recipe for growth that’s not only an expansion of the terrain, but an increase by 500 skiers per day – and that’s a significant increase in traffic up and down the road,” she said.
“I actually think it’s a sad day for the integrity of Parks Canada. You can no longer trust them to live by these kinds of arrangements, like the arrangement they made in 1989-1990.”
The Association for Mountain Parks Protection and Enjoyment (AMPPE), on the other hand, says Norquay’s owners have made enormous concessions, such as agreeing to give up 44 per cent of the ski area’s leasehold.
“I think Norquay is a contributor to a vibrant community in Banff, and they’ve made major concessions and they deserve enormous credit for that,” said Monica Andreeff, the group’s executive director.
Andreeff said residents of Banff value the local hill, known as part of the Banff community, where children and families grow up skiing and want to see it thrive into the future.
“I think this is a win for wildlife, a win for Parks Canada and a win for Norquay in terms of their long-term sustainability,” she said.
“No one wants to look up at Norquay and point to slopes that used to be a ski area and no one wants to see crumbling infrastructure,” she added.
“The outcome is we’ll have great visitor experience up there, an important part of Banff community will be able to operate into the future.”
Lawrence White, executive director of the Alpine Club of Canada, said he has no problem with via ferrata if it’s offered within the context of the site guidelines.
“If it’s on tenured land and it complements the experience of the offering Mount Norquay has, by all means,” he said. “It a great opportunity to get people into the park to experience something they may not otherwise experience.”
