How the Alberta government’s All-Season Resorts Act could lead to tacky attractions sprouting up across our provincial parks and protected areas
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The holiday drive into British Columbia via the Trans-Canada Highway is always a mix of the beautiful and the horrific.
The beauty of driving through four of Canada’s pristine national parks invariably leaves me gobsmacked. The iconic snow-kissed mountains are especially majestic in winter, when the roads are not choked by RVs and overladen SUVs.
And then, well, there is the rest of the road. As you approach the funky little mountain town of Revelstoke on Highway 1, the experience changes into a tacky display of privately run campgrounds and tourist-trap attractions. Many of you who have driven the road can easily call to mind what I’m talking about.
One of the first attractions you encounter west of Rogers Pass is the Canyon Hot Springs Resort, its garish red and yellow sign in startling contrast to the verdant forests that line the road. Hot springs are a thing; a little further down the road, Crazy Creek advertises “hot pools” conveniently available in swimming pool format. And, of course, there are the double-barrel eye-assaults of “historic” 3 Valley Gap and the child-focused Enchanted Forest.
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I don’t mean to pick on these attractions – they are great distractions for the kids, after all. But I worry whether they are bellwethers of what Albertans can expect now that the current provincial government has opened the opportunity to develop attractions on massive swaths of previously protected Crown land.
The All-Season Resorts Act, passed just before the Christmas break, allows for the removal of any provincial park or protected area from protection without public consultation, at the discretion of the Minister of Tourism and Sport. These areas could then be leased to private companies on a long-term basis for commercial resort development.
There is every reason to worry about what this fundamental shift in land management will mean for the wild spaces of this province. Alberta Tourism and Sport Minister Joseph Schow has signaled that the current government wants to turbocharge private investment in new destinations as part of its tourism growth strategy. The goal is to drive visitor spending from $10.7 billion in 2022 to $25 billion by 2035. Yeah, you read that right – an increase of spending by a factor of two-and-half within a decade.
And to make it clear where the inspiration comes from, Schow pointed to the B.C. example: “We saw B.C. take this approach two decades ago, to consolidate approvals for all-season resorts into one area,” he said in an interview. “We’re going to make a made-in-Alberta model of what B.C. has done.”
Schow added that the province is happy to let investors decide on the best in-field locations. “We’re going to allow the private sector to do their research and do what it does best,” he enthused.
Good God! We are at risk of losing much of what makes this province special. If we look to the examples from B.C., and elsewhere, those developments suggest we could be on the cusp of the Disneyfication of the province. On the tackiness scale, we could soon be competing with Niagara Falls.
And let’s not forget that privately leased land is no longer available at a cost that all Albertans can afford. Not everyone, for example, has the cash on hand needed for the $300+ room rates plus meals at the Pomerory Kananaskis.
For all its new-found enthusiasm for developing tourism – a notion that is not without merit as we seek to diversify revenue sources – it seems more than ironic that this government is not interested in opposing the destruction of one of those wild spaces. Northback Holdings Corp., formerly Benga Mining Ltd., is an Australian company that seems hell-bent on mining coal in Grassy Mountain in the southwest corner of Alberta. At the end of its estimated 23-year mine life, it will leave a scarred open-pit landscape over 6,918 acres in the Rocky Mountain’s Eastern Slopes and a potential legacy that will destroy fish habitat and undermine efforts by ranchers to preserve what we have.
Perhaps the province thinks disaster tourism could be the next big thing.
If you haven’t taken a drive west along Highway 1 recently, I invite you to head out there to have a look. As you motor by B.C.’s garish roadside attractions, ask yourselves whether this is what you want for Alberta. And, if it isn’t, you need to tell the government of Danielle Smith right now how you feel.
Doug Firby is an award-winning editorial writer with over four decades of experience working for newspapers, magazines and online publications in Ontario and western Canada. Previously, he served as Editorial Page Editor at the Calgary Herald.
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