Usually the onset of spring sees Albertans trading their skis for their hiking boots as the snow retreats from the valley bottom trails in Banff National Park.
Our parks may be closed now, but eventually our social distancing times will end. When it’s over, we will see the world and each other a little differently, and perhaps we will view our parks differently too.
One thing that has become abundantly clear in the last few weeks is how much we need nature; Albertans crave connection to our wild spaces, just as we always have.
John Burroughs said: “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune once more.” Those words swirl through our current reality holding more truth than ever. When you think about what going to nature looks like for you, what do you see? What do you smell? What do you hear?
Right now, bears are coming out of hibernation and wolf pups are frolicking around their dens. Elk are searching for fresh shoots of green grass and birds are doing a mating dance in the trees along the Bow River.
Wildlife adapt incredibly quickly to a lack of people and may already be using habitats differently. Trees reach for the sky and squirrels defend their territories from other squirrels. The well-maintained trails are frequented by critters.
The air still smells like pine and spring buds, but the bird song is uninterrupted as it fills the air surrounding wetlands. When I get back there, I want to see, smell and hear those things.
As we hunker down and dream of parks, we have an opportunity to identify what we most want to experience when we get back to nature. Right now, Parks Canada planners are writing draft management plans for the mountain parks that will provide management direction for the next 10 years. Public consultation on these draft plans will be launched later this spring.
Banff National Park sees over four million visitors per year and our local economy relies on that visitation. In recent years, we have seen a trend towards large infrastructure developments in park, but this isn’t required for visitor enjoyment.
Proper visitation management can provide for high quality, authentic visitor experiences in our post-COVID-19 world.
Parks Canada has recently made some steps in the right direction. Earlier this year, Parks Canada rejected a proposal by Liricon Inc. to construct a largescale tourism development at the base of Mt. Norquay.
The proposal included a gondola to the summit and a Wal-Mart size parking area at the entrance to town. Liricon’s larger vision for the Bow Valley also includes a passenger train from Calgary to Banff and they have promised to revise and resubmit their proposal to better meet Parks Canada requirements.
Liricon will tell people that this massive development will improve the visitor experience, but is it what you envision when you think of our parks? How can we foster connections to nature when we’ve paved over it?
These large infrastructure developments change our experience and dramatically increase crowding of people in sensitive wildlife habitats. This train and gondola and other such developments aren’t ways to improve traffic congestion in the Bow Valley and improve ecological integrity, they are ways for private interests to make money at the expense of our parks’ ecological health, what they represent to Canadians, and potentially your recreational enjoyment.
As park users, we have an opportunity to think about how we use our parks and how we can go back to them in ways that minimize our impacts to the animals who live there, while also allowing us to experience and connect to nature.
The upcoming Banff National Park management plan should define an approach to manage growing visitation through an overarching strategy that creates a variety of authentic visitor experiences that encourage people to enjoy our park without negatively impacting its ecological functionality.
We can change how we use parks through a management plan that is evidence-based and prescriptive, while addressing the needs of the local community and businesses, and our precious wildlife.
A visitor management strategy is an opportunity to do things better for people and wildlife. We have an opportunity to start over and meaningfully manage park visitation to ensure that when we go to nature, it’s still available in all its glory.
Sarah Elmeligi, PhD is a Canmore-based ecologist and contractor with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
