People will look at Sunwapta Valley in Jasper National Park in a whole new way as of Thursday (May 1) when the brand new Glacier Skywalk opens officially to the public.
The glass-floored observation platform 280 metres above the valley offers a new way for visitors to connect with the wilderness and was developed by Brewster Travel Canada.
Company president David McKenna said it has been exciting watching the process from start to finish, from concept and design to completion. The innovative design and engineering of the viewing platform and environmental monitoring has already won a number of awards, including at a World Architecture Festival.
“For the most part, we are trying to challenge people a little bit,” McKenna said in an interview with the Outlook. “One of the main goals of the attraction itself was to connect people to a part of the natural environment in a way that they have not yet been able to do in a national park.
“The glass bottom viewing platform certainly does that. We wanted to be able to put people into an acute sense of place and not just in the regular two dimensions. When we stand on a bridge or a deck that is a two-dimensional viewing platform; we are standing on one and looking out on the other.
“So we wanted to project people out in three dimensions into the environment where truly the birds are soaring under your feet and there is this immense wonderment all around you in terms of these massive glaciers off in the distance and great mountains right there.”
The project was designed and constructed by Alberta companies. Sturgess Architecture and RJC Engineering won the design competition and PCL Construction Management constructed the project. In addition to the World Architecture Festival award, the project won three honours at the 12th annual Alberta Construction Magazine Top Projects Awards.
In February, the Consulting Engineers of Alberta awarded the Skywalk an award of excellence in building engineering as well as the environmental award of merit for environmental assessment and monitoring.
Golder & Associates and Read Jones Christoffersen were honoured at the CEA Awards for their roles in the Glacier Skywalk’s environmental assessment and monitoring, and design.
“The Glacier Skywalk has been a remarkable project,” said Golder wildlife biologist Kyle Knopff. “One of Brewster’s key goals was to develop the project with minimal environmental impact. By applying sustainable development principles and practices, the Golder team helped achieve this goal by identifying ways, through careful monitoring, to maintain mountain goat use of the site during construction.”
McKenna said the awards and being named one of the world’s coolest new attractions has been humbling and the recognition is appreciated. He said one of the most challenging parts of the project was communicating the vision of the Skywalk at the beginning of the process.
“It is such an innovative concept and new idea that for a while it was hard for us to get through to people exactly what we were conceptualizing and then what we were promoting,” he said. “There are so many innovative pieces to this. Just the fact that right from the get-go our design approach was first do no harm.
“We wanted to go into the environment and not disturb any previously undisturbed land. We didn’t want to bring things into the environment that were at all a detriment to the environment and so a lot of incredible decisions were made along the way.”
For example, the type of steel and glass used will make it easier to maintain the structure and does away with the need to paint it, he added.
The design of the structure really focused on harmonizing with the environment and McKenna said taking an innovative approach is paying dividends now. It is also purposely designed to be 100 per cent accessible for people with disabilities.
“It is a design build; purposely built so that anybody who can’t enjoy the parks like the rest of us can have a fantastic experience and we are immensely proud of that accomplishment,” he said. “Then we feel we are going to have people leave with a nugget of the area that they didn’t know before and that is the use of our different, and again very innovative, interpretive elements.”
McKenna said Brewster did not want to use “just the old plaque type interpretive stuff” and instead has a three-stage rollout for interpretation linked to a hand held audio guide.
“As people go along they can choose what they are interested in and if they are really interested in any particular topic you can drill down to three different levels of knowledge,” he said.
There is also kinetic experienced developed by Global Experience Specialists and he said the goal is capture people’s imagination and demonstrate the common theme of following the water.
“Our overarching goal at the end of this is to explain to people the canyon they look over is the result of retreating glaciers and you can still see the water from the glacier off in the distance and then really the importance of that water as it relates to local wildlife, flora and fauna and humans,” he said, adding water from the valley connects to three different oceans. “For me, I am most proud of being part of the sheer magnitude of collaboration, feedback and teamwork that was required to realize the conceptual vision and turn it into a wonderful finished experience.”
