We wonder if, in the case of Banff and its surrounding national park, things have gotten to the point where, much like Jack Nicholson’s movie, Something’s Gotta Give.
These days, it seems, study after study, if you read between the lines, suggests that the entire complex Bow Valley/Rocky Mountain package of human-wildlife encounters, traffic and parking congestion, backcountry safety, affordable housing and staff retention issues and pressures on the community hasn’t reached some kind of a point of no return.
In this week’s Outlook alone, a study suggests that wildlife encounters (front page), including with our bears, are on the rise right alongside tourism increases. Many more people in the area may well equal many more chances for human-wildlife incidents.
We don’t know if more people in the backcountry resulted in a climber versus bear in a cave incident (page 8), or backcountry climbers killed and injured (pages 12 and 14) which follow snowmobilers and other climbers killed or injured in recent weeks, but if there is a tipping point where too many visitors begins to equal too many dangerous incidents, maybe we’ve arrived at that point.
Hey, we recognize tourism as a main driving force economically in our valley, but, with free 2017 Parks passes already likely adding to the millions that make their way to our valley, the possibility of train service hauling even more westward from Cowtown and a seemingly ever-increasing number of special events on the books, it’s hard to imagine when, where or at what time of year anyone or anything in this valley will be able to pause, take a deep breath and chill out.
Will there come a time when there’s a collective ‘enough is enough’ demand for sanity?
As it is, for many reasons, people do call it quits in our valley, move their families away, close up a business; whatever helps them deal with the stresses of daily living.
We’re not sure there’s a solution to the ‘too much of a good thing’ scenario, but maybe it’s time to contemplate the idea that ‘ever increasing everything’ is just not sustainable.
Emergency shelter needed
Along with obvious increasing pressures from almost every direction in our valley, there are invisible pressures such as those that occur behind closed doors.
These pressures, which can result in spousal emotional and physical abuse, are, like the external pressures mentioned above, unlikely to abate any time soon.
The difference, of course, is that internal pressures are not in the public eye and this is why the YWCA’s campaign to raise funds for a Bow Valley Women’s Emergency Shelter is critical and deserving of support.
Nobody truly knows what goes on behind those closed doors, but there’s no questioning the need for a women’s shelter in this area. The Bow Valley may seem and appear to be a mountain paradise to many, but for many women, it can be a mountain prison as they deal and their children deal with abuse within the home.
We encourage citizens to take part in YW fundraisers and give on their own to help this essential non-profit organization offer a place of calm and respite, with appropriate counseling, to those in need.
