Kananaskis Country

“The good news is they both had life jackets on, which I think saved them because one of them got pinned under the log for – his guess was 15 seconds – before he managed to pull himself to the surface.”

“It was a fairly close call in terms of swimming in water above the log jam … it was definitely a near miss,” said Kananaskis Country Public Safety specialist Mike Koppang, noting the rescued pair of kayakers were thankfully wearing personal floatation devices.

“Based on the information we had, we elected to fly out to the area, and we did locate the individual deceased at the bottom of the cliff. She succumbed to injuries as a result of a significant fall.”

"From the initial stages of the investigation police believe that the victim got stuck in a tree during his descent and then fell some distance."

“Don’t paddle in these areas unless you are very skilled and knowledgeable. When something goes wrong in the river it goes wrong fast and often with consequences.”

"We are a big mountain community and we need to take care of each other."

“We are still seeing people take some pretty aggressive ski lines in the valley, and thankfully nothing has gone wrong, but you never know how close you are sometimes in the avalanche world until you travel across that line.”

“The suspension is in place until the province’s chief medical officer of health is confident the health and public safety risk from COVID-19 is reduced."

“Unfortunately, COVID-19 has no regard for other disasters that may come our way this year - and the two that we are actively preparing for at this moment are the for the flood season and for the wildfire season.” – Banff fire chief Silvio Adamo

Air travel prices have dived in this time of BC, what a New York Times columnist calls "Before Corona." But where would you fly? And besides, can you even afford to buy cheap airline tickets now? It’s a different world.