JANUARY
A plan for the Town of Canmore to truck its sewage sludge to the Town of Banff’s wastewater treatment plant causes a bit of a stink.
Parks Canada has concerns about increased traffic to the plant along the golf course road, which lies within a critical wildlife corridor for carnivores like cougars and wolves, and important elk wintering habitat. The federal agency went on to give the okay in November 2014.
After years of contracting Brewster Canada to provide bus drivers, Roam Transit will begin hiring its own staff this year for the Banff local service.
Banff continues to experiment with angle parking in a bid to ease the tourist town’s parking crunch. Council decides to scrap angle parking on the 100 block of Beaver Street in the face of strong opposition from residents, but decides to begin a trial on Bow Avenue to create additional stalls, and turn the riverside road into one-way-street (the trial continues in 2015, except the one-way will be reversed, now going south to north).
Banff Elementary School will see a major modernization and redevelopment with the announcement of a multi-million project by the provincial government.
A proposed staff accommodation project on Beaver Street receives push back from some members of the community who don’t think dormitory-style housing is appropriate in residential neighbourhoods. The contentious project by Caribou Properties goes on to be approved.
FEBRUARY
After years of an unsuccessful voluntary closure, Parks Canada announces a small section of Bow Valley Parkway will be legally off limits to people overnight from March 1 to June 25 in a bid to give wildlife like grizzly bears and wolves undisturbed space during critical springtime.
MARCH
Parks Canada wardens investigate a report of feeding wildlife after a video of a Calgary man feeding a deer in Banff was posted on social media. It shows the man standing outside in Banff with a mule deer eating food out of his hand while he drinks a can of beer.
Developers have a chance to get a break on parking requirements as part of the Town of Banff’s attempt to encourage construction of rental apartment buildings to ease the town’s housing crunch. Banff politicians vote to sign off on policy C122, which is based on research suggesting rental apartments typically have lower vehicle ownership and don’t need as many spaces.
Five people die in avalanches in Banff National Park this month, including a father tobogganing with his 11-year-old son not far from Chateau Lake Louise.
Rescuers recover bodies of a Montreal man and his young son March 15 – several days after they were reported missing. They were buried in a large slide while tobogganing on or near a steep slide path on Mount Fairview on the shores of Lake Louise. The following day, on March 16, 38-year-old Greg Di Valentin, an experienced outdoorsman from Calgary, died in hospital after he was buried in an avalanche the day before near Helen Shoulder glades on the Icefields Parkway. On March 8, a 42-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman were killed in a big slide on Lake Agnes, a small lake above Lake Louise.
APRIL
Two separate appeals against a decision by Parks Canada to conditionally approve plans for Sunshine Village to develop a new Goat’s Eye day lodge have been dropped. Both the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and Sunshine appealed the decision, but Parks Canada determined “a judicial review in federal court, rather than through Parks Canada’s development appeal process, was the appropriate mechanism for any review of the decision.”
Reports of toxic trash and garbage along the Canadian Pacific Railway line in Banff National Park prompted a Parks Canada investigation. A series of photos provided to the Outlook show items of toxic trash, including discarded bottles of anti-freeze, diesel fuel and motor oil, as well as plastic bottles and food containers, scattered along the tracks near Massive Siding just east of Hillsdale Meadows.
Parks Canada plans to capture and collar more grizzly bears in spring as part of a project to stop the ongoing deaths of the threatened species on the train tracks in Banff and Yoho national park. Wildlife experts want to have about 10 to 12 grizzlies fitted with collars to track them movements and gather vital data.
Redevelopment and renovation of Banff’s historic train station as part of an ambitious plan to revitalize the dilapidated lands at the northeast entrance to the tourist towns nears completion.
But proposed new uses for the railway lands (CR) district, including expanded commercial uses to include hotel rooms and retail shops to make Banff Caribou Properties’ redevelopment more financially viable, are still in the hands of Parks Canada lawyers.
MAY
Brewster Travel Canada is planning a major development and renovation of the upper terminal at its sightseeing gondola on Banff’s Sulphur Mountain. The plan includes completely redoing the interior of the upper terminal, including washrooms, gift shops and restaurants, and new observation deck with 360-degree views of the Bow Valley.
The Town of Banff considers beefing up enforcement as a possible way to ease parking woes.
Banff National Park has proven to be one of the best places in the world to study how effective crossing structures are for giving wildlife safe passage across deadly roads and highways. There is nowhere else in the world with as many and different types of underpasses and overpasses as in Banff.
After 17 years of research by local scientist Tony Clevenger, considered one of the world’s foremost experts on interactions of wildlife and highways, Parks Canada decides to stop financially contributing to his work and take over the monitoring themselves.
JUNE
It’s almost worse than a royal baby watch – where is Banff’s most famous grizzly bear? Bear 64, a 24-year-old bear considered the matriarch of the Bow Valley, has not been spotted yet this year, though three young bruins hanging around Banff are likely offspring she sent off on their own the previous year.
Wildlife experts can’t say for sure what’s happened to 64 – whether she has died or is keeping potential new cubs in a safe and secure location away from predatory male bears – but they were hopeful she would show up.
There were no reports or sightings of 64 this year.
Banff decides to move ahead with a controversial user-pay parking trial this summer in five downtown lots.
Drivers will be charged $2 an hour to park in the Bear Street lot opposite Bison Courtyard, the Bear Street lot between Town Hall and Nesters, the Buffalo Street lot behind Clock Tower Mall, Beaver Street behind the visitor centre and a Beaver-Caribou lot behind the Mount Royal Hotel. The trial project will run from Aug. 1 until Oct. 31, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.
It’s been a tough and deadly week for black bears in mountain national parks. Three black bears were killed on the roads and railways in Banff, Yoho and Kootenay national parks, a fourth bruin is possibly dead after getting hit by a car and another was so stressed it spent more than 24 hours up a tree in the middle of the busy Trans-Canada Highway.
All areas surrounding the busy Banff townsite are either under closure or warning because of intense grizzly bear activity. There are two large competing male grizzlies, a female grizzly bear with two new cubs and three other young bruins, believed to be the offspring of bear 64, plus other bears.
Wildlife experts say the bruins are under a lot of stress because of constant run-ins with people. One young bear has bluff charged hikers and canoeists and ripped open a tent full of food set up illegally in the woods. Bear 22, an infamous 700-pound male grizzly, strolled right though the heart of Central Park on the night of June 22, forcing wildlife experts and RCMP to control crowds in the park and gently shepherd the bear to safety.
A new communication policy directing all Parks Canada media requests go through high-ranking bureaucrats in Ottawa means Banff residents – and the Canadian public – no longer have the same access to information about their national parks as they used to. The policy to put tighter controls on the release of information means every media request, no matter how benign, must be approved at the top, with the only exception being immediate public safety issues.
This type of centralized media management, which has become increasingly used by the Stephen Harper government, has implications for the Canadian public, including hampering the media’s ability to bring the public news in a timely, fair, thorough and accurate manner, according to critics of the policy. Based on documents obtained under the Access to Information Act (ATIP), it is unclear if the new directive came from high-ranking officials within Parks Canada, or the environment minister’s office, the department that oversees the agency.
JULY
A federal court has ruled in Parks Canada’s favour over its decision to ban parking in hazardous avalanche terrain on part of the access road to Sunshine Village ski resort. In an 18-page ruling handed down on June 23, Justice Michael Phelan dismissed Sunshine’s fight against Parks Canada’s 2012 decision to ban traffic on the upper section of the road, though Sunshine is also seeking a judicial review of the agency’s 2013 decision.
For the past two winters, public parking has been restricted on the upper three-kilometre stretch of the road – where there are about eight large avalanche paths, known as Bourgeau 1 through 7 on the north side and Eagle 3 from the south.
Three black bears have been struck and killed by vehicles travelling through the mountain national parks since July 1. It brings the total number of black bears killed so far this year to nine.
A wildfire straddling Banff National Park along the David Thompson Highway has been brought under control and is currently being held in place.
AUGUST
The Town of Banff will go after residents who illegally rent out their homes to visitors. The issue was before Banff town council on Aug. 18 and Banff’s planning and development department asked politicians for direction on how to deal with unauthorized commercial accommodation properties in residential homes. The planning department has been getting more and more requests from the public to actively enforce the land use bylaw when it comes to this issue.
It’s been a wildly abnormal year for human-bear interactions in Banff National Park. By August, Banff National Park had surged past 1,000 wildlife occurrences; they range from elk lumbering along the shoulder of the highway to bears nosing through garbage cans at campsites – and bluff charges.
Banff council voted to provide some financial relief to Banff Hockey Academy after the company requested help in meeting its commitments to the municipality. BHA currently has debt of $116,299 with the Town of Banff in relation to facility and ice rentals at the Fenlands. The hockey school has not been making monthly payments, prompting administration to take action to get the business to meet its contract terms.
Council voted to let BHA pay back the amount it owes over the next five years at a preferential interest rate of three per cent, an initial lump sum to enter back into the contract with the municipality of 10 per cent, forgiveness for ice rental payments for the week of Aug. 11-15 as BHA did not use the ice, and a 50 per cent discount for non-prime ice time.
A bold female black bear that had been hanging out in the Banff townsite feasting on fruit trees and causing a significant public safety concern had to be euthanized after a capturing procedure accidentally went wrong.
On Aug. 29, Parks Canada wildlife managers were trying to capture the three-year-old female bear on The Banff Centre property to relocate it out of town before the busy September long weekend. But a tranquilizer dart hit her spine and paralyzed the bear’s hind legs.
SEPTEMBER
A new draft housing strategy calls for more rental housing, a maximum size for single family homes, residential housing in the industrial compound and mandating live-in management for new high density apartments as ways to tackle Banff’s housing shortage. The strategy aims to deal with Banff’s critical housing shortage, which a 2012 study predicts will be between 455 and 730 units by 2022, if the current trend in population growth continues.
A fed bear is usually a dead bear – but Parks Canada is working around the clock to keep alive one food-conditioned black bear that was fed by someone and later got into garbage in the Banff townsite. On Sept. 6, Parks Canada received a report that someone had fed a bear near Echo Creek behind Mineral Springs Hospital. They did not release any details, including what the food was. The bear also got into garbage in a residential area.
OCTOBER
Bow Valley outdoor fanatics can rejoice as areas along the Legacy Trail and Cascade Ponds have reopened for recreational use, including the addition of new bridges and revived aquatic habitat. Flood-affected areas near the east entrance to the Town of Banff were repaired and, in some cases, improved upon, as culverts were replaced and retaining walls, a new wildlife gate and electro-mats were installed to be able to withstand similar events in the future with minor damage.
After three years of negotiations with Epcor on a contract for the company to run all of Banff’s utilities, town council decided to keep the work in-house, citing added costs associated with the private sector option. The utility services being considered include the wastewater treatment plant, water treatment plant and sewer and storm water system, and a cost analysis showed it would cost $350,000 more annually for Epcor to the work than for Town of Banff staff.
Brewster Travel Canada’s plans for a major redevelopment of the upper terminal of the sightseeing gondola on Sulphur Mountain have passed the environmental review process.
Banff Housing Corporation is out of the development business and the Town of Banff is taking over. The mandate of the BHC, created in 1993 as a not-for-profit developer, has been dramatically scaled back to include management of its existing housing portfolio at Middle Springs and downtown Banff and perhaps overseeing future rental properties the Town of Banff will build, such as on Banff Avenue.
The future of a captive breeding program to boost dangerously low caribou numbers in the mountain national parks appears uncertain. The Calgary Zoo pulled out of the program with Parks Canada due to lack of funding and support. The zoo concluded the funding proposed by Parks Canada put too much of the financial burden on the Calgary Zoo at a time when they had many other conservation and flood recovery priorities.
NOVEMBER
A draft plan to govern trails in the Banff townsite calls on Banff’s commercial horse tour operator to immediately pick up horse poo from the trails. Establishing a formal trail use agreement between the Town of Banff and Holiday on Horseback is a key recommendation in the draft Trails Master Plan and should include regulations for trail use and maintenance. The plan suggested horse riders and wranglers be responsible for immediate cleaning up, bagging and disposal of all horse manure. A potential option to address this is for cleanup crews to follow each group of horses immediately.
The Town of Banff is looking to build up to 36 rental units on the 300 block of Banff Avenue to tackle Banff’s housing crunch – and is considering charging an additional tax on residents to pay for the project and any future housing initiatives. The proposal is for a $9.3 million apartment housing complex on Banff Avenue, with council showing a strong willingness to set a housing levy to fund operating and capital costs of housing developments.
The future of paid parking in the Town of Banff will be on the ballot in the next municipal election in 2017. While a petition this summer successfully put an end to paid parking in the resort community, it was only a trial that was affected.
DECEMBER
Parks Canada is beefing up avalanche safety messaging with permanent signage for visitors to the Lake Louise and Emerald Lake region after five people were killed in deadly slides in Banff National Park in March. All but one of the deaths, which involved an experienced Calgary skier with avalanche training, happened in easily accessible areas near Lake Louise, prompting Parks Canada to review how it communicates avalanche risk to people not intending to head into the backcountry.
The Town of Banff is moving ahead with a feasibility study of a gondola to popular tourist spots on Sulphur Mountain, The Banff Centre and Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in a bid to ease the tourist town’s traffic woes.
The $70,000 study, which is on the books for 2015, will also look at the feasibility of a second bride across the Bow River and widening and road alignment of Mountain Avenue. Town officials are meeting with several people in Parks Canada on Jan. 7 to begin talks on how to solve the congestion problem, including the concept of a gondola system.
The Town of Banff will trial a new idea to give financially struggling residents discounts and better access to municipal programs and services. It will be called the Banff Access Card, a tamper proof card that would include an individual’s name, possible photo and one-year expiry. The Town also plans to establish a low income cut-off for accessing programs that is 30 per cent higher than the federal cut-off.
Parks Canada is placing several bright red, plastic chairs in scenic locations throughout Canada’s national parks, including Banff, to help draw people to viewpoints and connect with nature. Conservationists say the recycled plastic Adirondack chairs found in areas ranging from alpine meadows to waterside havens and the tops of mountains are an ugly intrusion on the natural landscape that do absolutely nothing to connect people with nature. Parks Canada, on the other hand, says the red chairs, which cost $550 a pair, are to draw people to special places such as the top of Tunnel Mountain and Lake Minnewanka in Banff, Takkakaw Falls in Yoho, Marble Canyon in Kootenay and Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper.
