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Kevin Van Tighem says YES

Alberta-born author, naturalist and former Banff National Park superintendent (2008–2011)

Over four million people visited Banff National Park in 2023. Some got lost or hurt and had to be rescued. Others fed bears and had to get straightened out. All flushed toilets, drove on roads and parked in parking lots. Campgrounds had to be maintained. Signs, picnic tables and boardwalks had to be repaired. The list goes on. It’s costly.

A lot of Canadians, however, didn’t visit Banff or any other national park—either because they couldn’t afford to or weren’t interested. It’s not clear why their tax dollars should finance holidays enjoyed by others.

Should the occupants of all those vehicles streaming into the park each day pay their own way Of course they should; they get to enjoy a costly privilege that others don’t. But the core costs associated with national parks should be funded through the public treasury. That’s not a contradiction, because it’s not the same thing.

National parks are institutions that represent the part of our Canadian identity defined by our nature and our history. Parks ensure we’ll always be able to know ourselves, because we’ll always be able to find ourselves. That mandate is a benefit to all—visitors or not—and a legacy to future generations. Like our national archives, military, treaty obligations and other institutions, it makes sense to fund our parks with tax revenues.

And, in fact, every Canadian should be welcome to visit and be inspired by their national parks without paying a fee. The parks are ours, by virtue of citizenship. But here’s the problem: when we choose to visit by means of a vehicle, that creates costs unrelated to protecting heritage—and compromises that very mandate. Without cars, we wouldn’t need to replace wildlife habitat with kilometres of paved highway lined with noxious weeds. Without cars there wouldn’t be bear jams and traffic gridlock. Snowplowing, parking lots, fencing, roadkill—all are in service of vehicles and those of us who insist on using them.

When I was responsible for Banff National Park I did a little back-of-the-envelope calculation and found that well more than 75 per cent of the park’s budget went to providing for the use of—or mitigating the impacts of—vehicles. Recently congestion has brought parts of that park to a virtual standstill. An added irony: the exhaust gases spewing from those engines contribute to a climate disaster that makes park protection increasingly hopeless as glaciers melt, fires burn and wildlife comes under growing stress. In Banff’s case the problem is compounded by a species of mandate creep that has turned a protected heritage place—dedicated only to future generations of Canadians—into an international tourism resort. More vehicles.

So here’s my idea: the basic costs of protecting parks—our national birthright—should be fully funded by tax revenues. Canadians arriving on their own two feet should get in for free. But anyone who comes by vehicle should pay a substantial fee that accounts for the full cost of that privilege. No free rides.

Ian Urquhart says no

U of A professor emeritus and former editor of the AWA’s Wild Lands Advocate

Free admission to Canada’s national parks was a gift Ottawa gave Canadians in 2017 for this country’s 150th birthday. It was a good idea then; it’s a good idea now.

Entrance fees are a revenue source for Parks Canada, albeit a small one. In 2022/23 the agency spent $1.28-billion; entrance fees paid for $91.5-million, or 7 per cent, of those expenses. Why get rid of these fees I recently posed this question to Catherine McKenna, the federal minister who delivered free admission to national parks in 2017. Today she strongly believes parks should be free “because we need people to understand the value of nature,” and that spending time in the outdoors may be the best way to do that. She suggested free admission helps parks promote many values, including health, equality, biodiversity, climate change mitigation and Indigenous partnerships. I agree, and I’ll just address two of them.

Research into the nature–human relationship clearly shows the health benefits of spending time in nature. Greenspace exposure reduces high blood pressure, high HDL cholesterol and cardiovascular mortality. Nature delivers similar mental health benefits. Connectedness with nature reduces stress while increasing happiness and cognitive abilities.

The research demonstrates parks are essential health care institutions. Dr. Melissa Lem agrees. She’s the director of PaRx, Canada’s prescription for nature program. Parks Canada has partnered with Lem’s program to enable registered health professionals to prescribe an annual park pass to patients. Alberta doctors who register with PaRx can prescribe this access to Alberta’s outstanding national parks. Calgary physician Andrea Hull regards PaRx as “an exciting way to showcase the health benefits of time in nature.”

Inequality is another important foundation for opposing entrance fees. User fees discourage people with lower incomes from participating in outdoor activities. Personally, $22 for a day pass to Banff isn’t going to stop me from visiting, but I’m lucky. The cost of a family day pass or annual pass ($151.25) puts time in national parks beyond many people’s reach.

I couldn’t support abolishing entrance fees if I thought it would mean damage to the parks. Maintaining and restoring ecological integrity is the first priority of managing the national parks. But the experience of 2017, when entry was free, allays my concerns. Parks Canada used other measures, such as buses and area closures, to manage the increase in visitors.

Banff National Park’s assessment of the 2017 season argued that McKenna’s decision was ultimately justified. Free passes “allowed more Canadians… to connect with these wonderful places that are actually their places.” The feared additional damage to nature from more visitors didn’t arise.

As minister of environment and climate change, McKenna favoured this tagline for our parks: “Discover. Connect. Protect.” Today let’s adopt it and add the word “Free.”

kevin van tighem responds to ian urquhart

Ian Urquhart argues that national parks should be free to Canadians because of parks’ health benefits. It’s hard to disagree with that view, but to an unfortunate degree it’s an idealistic one that doesn’t reflect the actual park experience for many visitors. It’s hard to see how sitting in a traffic jam on Banff Avenue or jostling with the crowds that throng the Lake Louise shoreline is good for health. If anything, the tension experienced by visitors during crowded times—which, increasingly, is most of the time—frays tempers and exacerbates the social stresses those visitors went to their parks to escape. That’s not healthy.

Minister McKenna’s 2017 decision to provide free access to Canada’s national parks was not the painless success that Urquhart suggests. Yes, in many less visited parks and historic sites, Canadians did connect to their heritage. But Alberta’s already crowded mountain parks saw worse traffic, bigger crowds and the diversion of budgets from priorities such as trail maintenance and wildlife management to crowd-control.  When a national park visit becomes an exercise in navigating traffic cones, being directed into emergency parking lots by safety-vest-clad employees, crowding onto buses and waiting endlessly, something has gone wrong. It certainly wasn’t good healthy fun for anyone, including those harried park employees.

Yes, Parks Canada scrambled to mitigate the challenge by setting up public transportation. But those buses, signs and flag-people came at a cost. Nothing is free, after all. Somebody has to pay. In 2017 it was Canadian taxpayers who picked up the tab. I’m not sure how this was fair to the large percentage of those taxpayers who chose not to visit a park that year—partly because of the well-publicized crowding issues.

Nothing guarantees a right to private vehicle use in the parks. Kilometres of pavement compromise nature.

Social equity challenges don’t just involve the cost of getting into a park. People who can’t afford a park pass generally live far from national parks. The economic challenges involved in enjoying those parks include the cost of transportation to get there, finding accommodation and paying inflated prices for meals and other amenities in parks that have been taken captive, to a considerable degree, by a tourism industry that targets well-off motorized travellers. Low-income Canadians unquestionably deserve the opportunity to experience their national parks, but the cost of admission is often the least of the barriers they face.

For all those quibbles, I generally agree with Urquhart. National parks are meant to benefit every Canadian; every Canadian should be able to enjoy them for free. But the traditional emphasis on private motor vehicles can make parks less than enjoyable.

Public transportation is one way to democratize access to the national parks. For that truly to work, it has to include not just internal options such as Banff’s Roam bus service but also services to help Canadians get to their parks from the cities and towns where most of us live. That’s a costly proposition, given that the country’s infrastructure is built around the private vehicle. It was no accident, after all, when Greyhound folded. Cars rule.

But the value of good, affordable public transportation to and in our national parks would go beyond social equity; it’s a critical part of any meaningful response to the climate crisis—a crisis that threatens both human health and the natural environment.

So how could we pay for it Collect high fees from those who insist on driving their vehicles to the parks. Progressive economic policy requires that those who demand special benefits that work against the public good should pay dearly for their privilege.

Nothing in the Canada National Parks Act guarantees a right to private vehicle use in the parks. As Urquhart points out, parks’ first priority is the protection of ecological integrity, something inevitably compromised by the kilometres of pavement covering what was once wildlife habitat; the hundreds of birds, mammals, amphibians and insects killed each year by vehicles; and the climate chaos engulfing us because of all the CO₂ those cars release.

National parks are dedicated to future generations of Canadians as places that provide for the benefit, education and enjoyment of people. Private vehicles aren’t required for that; just the opposite. Nature is off-pavement.

Anybody who doubts the need to challenge conventional car-centred logic in the management of national parks should take a trip to Banff on any summer weekend. Yes, national parks should be free to all Canadians. But not to our cars. If we charged private vehicle users the full cost of their privilege, we’d start generating the kind of revenues needed to fund public transportation for all. We might also restore the peaceful enjoyment of nature—the kind of real national park experience that is rapidly becoming roadkill.

ian urquhart responds to kevin van tighem

Kevin Van Tighem believes that anyone using a private vehicle to visit national parks should pay a “substantial fee.” Why Because such visitors compromise Parks Canada’s heritage protection mandate. He uses Banff National Park to make the point that vehicle congestion can produce gridlock. Banff again is used to argue that managing private vehicles costs a lot of money. Such costs are compounded, in the case of Banff, by the park’s alleged transformation from “a protected heritage place” into “an international tourism resort.”

Much of his argument is Banff-based. Banff is unique, and we should be wary of generalizing from what we think is best for Banff to all national parks. That said, I believe his prescription is wrong even for Banff.

Before I critique the former superintendent’s position, readers should know he misrepresents Banff’s history. Tourism, not heritage protection, motivated the establishment of Canada’s first national park. Sir John A. Macdonald concluded Banff could be “a great place of resort” that would attract people from across North America and Europe. Banff was created to be an international tourist destination. Decades later, parks commissioner J.B. Harkin wanted the parks to serve all Canadians. Ironically—given this dialogue—he saw roads and the automobile as the way to do that. Promoting tourism is a constant, not a novelty, in Banff National Park’s history.

We agree, however, that tension between human desires and heritage protection is another constant in the history of our mountain parks. Today’s volume of vehicle traffic to Banff attests to this.

But all visitors, including those in cars, are more than simply threats to heritage protection. They are potential allies to promote that mandate. Their support for parks is an important political resource in the annual competition for Canada’s tax dollars. Building public support for Parks Canada is especially important now. The agency benefited from the 2021 federal budget’s $2.3-billion investment in nature conservation. But the funding was temporary. It will dry up in 2026–2027, and with it will go an important chunk of the agency’s budget.

All visitors are potential allies to promote heritage protection. Support is more likely when entry is free.

Parks Canada needs our support to try to secure dollars to invest in its core mandate. Support is more likely when nearly all visitors say they would recommend their experience to others. In 2022–2023, 95 per cent of visitors to Canada’s national parks surveyed said this. A new, substantially increased entrance fee, a form of double taxation, might damage or kill that support.

A substantially higher fee would also make access even more challenging for lower-income Canadians. Today, as a century ago, the car offers the most practical and affordable means of travelling to Alberta’s national parks. The least expensive round-trip bus option for a family of four going to Banff from Calgary is just under $95, or $117 with a day pass. If the same family’s SUV uses 8 litres per 100 km, the fuel cost will be less than $35.

A bus trip to Jasper is a non-starter for a family of four living in Edmonton. The only commercial bus service to Jasper would cost them $344.44—one way. And if you live elsewhere in Alberta… An automobile is your only practical means for visiting.

The report of the expert advisory panel on moving people sustainably in the Banff Bow Valley (2022) saw pricing as one of its eight key strategies. But the panellists wrote that if a pricing strategy didn’t consider income it could “create equity issues and discourage lower-income persons from experiencing the  park.” Van Tighem’s position sounds like it would do exactly that.

Do vehicles produce gridlock in parts of Banff National Park Absolutely. But the panel suggested that serious transportation issues arose only “in a relatively small portion of the park. [Some] 97 per cent of the park is declared wilderness, where development is prohibited.” When gridlock occurs, it likely arises in the town of Banff, Lake Louise or Lake Minnewanka.

I’m writing this on a Sunday afternoon in July while looking at the Town of Banff’s traffic cams on my computer. The cameras show considerable traffic entering, leaving and driving around town. But while I’d be annoyed by this traffic if I lived in Banff, I can’t conclude the cars I’m watching constitute gridlock or pose a serious threat to heritage protection.

Without tourists, especially Canadian ones, the future of our national parks would be dim. Canadians’ support is vital to the heritage protection mandate that Van Tighem and I both value. Slapping a substantial fee on visitors who drive threatens that support. Instead of higher fees, Parks Canada should do what it does already for youth, members of the armed forces/veterans, and new Canadians—offer free entry. And let’s all join the fight for additional tax dollars.

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camille labchuk says YES

The animal rights lawyer and executive director of Animal Justice

It’s clear that using animals for entertainment is rapidly becoming unacceptable. This explains why the Ringling Bros. circus, famous for its elephant shows, was forced to abandon animal acts altogether. Shifting societal attitudes were also behind Canada’s groundbreaking new law that bans keeping whales and dolphins in captivity and outlaws using them in performances for the entertainment of spectators.

What of rodeo Rodeo events are a spectacle of suffering, offering fleeting entertainment yet causing serious fear, trauma and even death to the animals who are goaded into performing. That’s why rodeo should be the next frontier in the quest to treat animals with the kindness and respect they deserve.

The details of the events vary, but at its core rodeo necessitates cruelty and inhumane treatment of the animals who are conscripted into the “sport.” Animals are coerced into running or bucking through fear and often pain. Take, for example, tie-down roping, where a terrified calf, just months old, is chased down by a rider on horseback in front of thousands of loudly cheering fans. The calf is stopped in its tracks by a rope yanked tight around its throat, thrown down by the human competitor, and then has its legs roughly bound with rope while lying helpless in the dirt. It’s heartbreaking to imagine the terror the confused calf must experience.

The element of fear in rodeo is especially problematic for cows, calves and horses that are forced to compete, because they are prey animals. They are wired to be nervous, flighty and hyper-alert to protect themselves from predators. Renowned animal behaviourist Temple Grandin has even gone so far as to say the experience of fear for these sensitive animals is likely more unbearable than physical pain.

Worse still, animals used in rodeo are often killed. Well over 100 animals have been killed at the Calgary Stampede alone, many of them horses which are killed after suffering injuries in the notoriously dangerous chuckwagon races. The high-profile Stampede offers a snapshot of the harm inflicted on animals, but additional horses and cows are injured or killed at smaller events and during practice. For instance, last summer a horse was killed in Manitoba after breaking a leg in a bronc riding event, where a rider has to stay atop a horse that is induced to buck by a painful flank strap. Shockingly the event had no veterinarian on hand, nor euthanasia supplies.

The good news is that polling shows a steady decline in public support for using animals in rodeos, with over two-thirds of Canadians against the cruel practice. Even in the western provinces, a majority are opposed. There’s a growing feeling that using animals for abusive and deadly forms of entertainment is no longer acceptable. It’s less a question of whether we should ban rodeo than of when. It’s only a matter of time before the public, the courts and legislators will force rodeo into the pages of our history books, alongside elephant acts and orca shows.

aritha van herk says no

The author of many books, including Mavericks and Stampede and the Westness of West

Ban Rodeo Not a good idea. The enthusiasm for banning (ban books, ban TikTok, ban abortion) has overtaken civil discourse, reflected in the questionable conduct of those sporting signs expressing desire for sexual impertinence with politicians they despise. Banning rodeo would introduce another polarizing contretemps into increasingly weaponized cultural conflicts. Far better to engage in discussion.

A reflection of the agricultural settler tradition, imbued with the history of mutually beneficial connections between husbandry and survival, rodeo is more ambiguous than a spectator sport. From its Latin root rotare, meaning to rotate, to the Spanish rodear (to surround), rodeo comes around every year to remind us of the dangers of erasing the past. While the Calgary Stampede gets the most intense inspection, rodeos are celebrated across the west, from Brooks to Rockyford, from Wood Mountain to Brandon, from Tisdale to Writing-on-Stone. These are community gatherings, a chance to meet neighbours and newcomers alike, but not picnics looking for a stretch of grass without ants. Animals are key, even more so than their human sidekicks. With events focusing on timed competitions around riding, roping and human/animal coordination, stamina and strength, rodeos demonstrate how people and animals have worked together and challenged one another. And no sport is more scrutinized to ensure humane standards. (If only we followed such rules in our daily encounters.)

The desire to ban arises from a belief that rodeo animals suffer pain and damage, and the events display humans against animals. Such a view, rooted in a contemporary doctrine of antagonism, locates human/animal conjunction as pet ownership. It fails to recognize an important aspect: rodeo showcases humans working with animals. The “entertainment” label implies that the events are rough, deadly. (I blame this assumption on hockey, which is indeed man against man—with sticks.)

Our contemporary myopia about animals reflects an ignorance most noticeable in our attitude toward work, a resistance to getting our hands dirty. We think agriculture is machine-based; we want our food processed into meat analogues; we believe the ancient collaboration between living beings is more petting zoo than survival. In fact, plants and animals together have affected biodiversity and extinction, with much to teach us about change and adaptation.

The human/animal bond is an old one, and, yes, in rodeo, rules should and do change, ensuring that both human and animal suffer as little as possible. No one, least of all working ranch hands, wants to inflict pain or damage on the animals that shape their livelihood. They are correlative athletes.

Like the rodeo horses stamping their feet, eager to compete, every working dog team I saw in the Arctic was happy, much happier than any border collie stuck in an apartment or straining at the end of a leash.

camille labchuk responds to aritha van herk

Aritha van Herk’s defence of rodeo plays up three main themes: that rodeo is part of a proud tradition and community heritage (we’ve always done it); that using animals for rodeo somehow showcases a human/animal bond or symbiotic relationship (they like it); and that rodeo has strong humane standards (it doesn’t hurt).

Let’s start with the heritage, commonly used as the first line of defence to justify socially unacceptable practices, especially abusive spectacles such as rodeo, bullfighting or circuses. Celebrating heritage can be valuable and unifying, but when a tradition is based on domination and offends modern moral values, playing the history card is not a compelling reason to repeat the sins of the past. I shudder to imagine a world where instead of banning child marriage or conversion therapy, we simply engage in “dialogue” about it. This dialogue already exists when it comes to rodeo, a clear matter of controversy. But public discussion hasn’t prevented animals from being hurt and killed every year in these spectacles.

It’s also worth taking a close look at the heritage claim, because modern rodeo events have less to do with western heritage than many people assume. The Calgary Stampede was founded by an American vaudeville and Wild West show performer, who invented chuckwagon racing in 1923. Marketing teams package rodeo as western heritage, but the truth is that events such as bull riding and steer wrestling are far from “authentic” (cows and horses don’t naturally or willingly perform rodeo tricks) and have been distorted to provide high-stakes entertainment.

Celebrations of community heritage and culture can and do exist without rodeo. Most Calgary Stampede attendees already don’t patronize the rodeo ring—they show up for the fun outfits (who doesn’t love a good cowboy hat and boots?), the pancake breakfasts, the music and the rides. Eliminating rodeo would actually strengthen community celebrations by making them more inclusive, because the rodeo events wouldn’t alienate those people who aren’t comfortable watching sensitive horses and cows being coerced into performing.

“Heritage” is commonly used as the first line of defence to justify socially unacceptable practices.

Let’s turn now to the unsupportable idea that rodeo reflects some sort of symbiotic relationship where animals and humans work together and challenge each other. At its core, rodeo is a one-way, exploitative relationship of domination. It’s about showing ways that humans can control and coerce sensitive animals such as horses, calves and cows. Let’s not forget what rodeo is ultimately about: bravado for profit in the form of cash prizes. Rodeos offer huge prize money to the competitors that emerge victorious, and the Calgary Stampede was considered the second-richest rodeo on the continent in 2023.

The one-sidedness of rodeo competitions becomes apparent when you consider the details of how animals are forced to perform. Horses and cows are relatively tame animals that don’t naturally buck, flee or run race tracks, so they must be physically provoked to perform so cowboys can appear to “tame” them to look brave. Rodeos employ a variety of tools to torment animals, including a flank strap used in saddle bronc riding, affixed tightly around a horse’s hind quarters. Unbearably uncomfortable, horses will buck vigorously to escape this torture.

Flank straps can be used in bull riding too, and in a 2018 bull riding event in Chilliwack, the Vancouver Humane Society (VHS) documented a competitor holding an electric prod just before a bull was coerced into the ring—these prods can be used to zap an animal to force them to charge out of the chute and start performing for the crowds. In 2022 a team member of a bronc rider competitor repeatedly hit a horse in the face after she resisted leaving the chute at the Calgary Stampede. He faced no legal accountability.

All of this should make clear that rodeo events are not humane and are not better scrutinized, as van Herk asserts, than our own daily encounters. I have yet to meet anyone in my daily life who has attempted to make me flee while they throw a rope around my neck and jerk me to the ground like a baby cow in calf roping.

The truth is that pain and suffering are inherent to rodeo, and so is death. The death toll at the Calgary Stampede is well documented, particularly at the chuckwagon races. According to statistics compiled by the VHS, over 100 animals have died at the Stampede since 1986. While we have less documentation about smaller rodeos and rodeo training, the lethal impact of rodeo is clear.

The undeniable arc of social progress has been toward providing more protections and more respect to vulnerable groups and individuals, and this includes animals. We’re in the midst of a moral revolution on the use of animals in entertainment in particular, and it’s only a matter of time before our laws catch up and make rodeo a memory best left in the past.

aritha van herk responds to camille labchuk

Camille Labchuk calls Rodeo “a spectacle of suffering… causing serious fear, trauma and even death to the animals who are goaded into performing.” It’s entirely appropriate that wild animals shouldn’t be confined for human entertainment, but they occupy a different sphere than domesticated animals, which play a synergistic role in human and ecological relationships. And the declaration that “rodeo necessitates cruelty and inhumane treatment” is inaccurate. Let’s face facts.

Animals in rodeos are owned by people invested in their care and management; rodeo is where husbandry’s culture, context and history come together. And organizers are held to high standards. The regulations in Alberta’s Animal Protection Act are monitored by various humane societies; they ensure “codes of best practices” are met and veterinarians are on site. Rodeos also welcome researchers working to better understand animal behaviour.

Labchuk says these animals experience a life of deprivation and injury. Fact: the 500 horses who are part of the Stampede’s “Born to Buck” program roam 23,000 acres of open grassland. Every year 200 of them compete in rodeos—eight seconds, no more than 15 times a year, for a total of two minutes.

Labchuk quotes renowned animal behaviourist Temple Grandin on how “the experience of fear for these sensitive animals is likely more unbearable than physical pain.” But this quote is selective. Grandin visited the Stampede in 2011 specifically to look at animal welfare. “I was very pleased with what I saw with the bulls,” she told media. “I went right down there behind the chutes, they’re just as calm as they can be, while they’re putting all the tack on them.… I watched those bulls go out and start bucking… they were not afraid… Also, contrary to popular belief, bucking straps do not go on bulls’ privates, they go around the waist and it’s just a sudden novel stimulus… I was extremely pleased with what I saw with the bulls and the horses.”

Grandin continues: “I’m glad [the Stampede] passed a rule on calf-roping so that they’re not jerking the calf down. That is really good.” Fact: Jerking a calf disqualifies the competitor.

The declaration that “rodeo necessitates cruelty and inhumane treatment” is inaccurate.

Asked what she thinks of rodeo, Grandin responds: “[It] can be done with a good level of welfare. I’m very pleased with the fact that Calgary Stampede has been a leader on having an animal welfare committee… with a trained animal welfare auditor auditing all events. They’ve been serious about bringing about change. I am interested in reforming things, not getting rid of them.”

Rodeos are a way people can learn (a little at least) about animals, agriculture and food. Grandin says “We’ve got a population now totally removed from animals, totally removed from practical things. People don’t know.” She’s right. Too many think that meat comes on plastic trays and that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. We’ve eaten so much processed junk that we don’t understand the origins of food. We refuse to recognize our connection to and, yes, our consumption of animals, preferring a sanitized world where discomfort is erased. We ignore the environmental toll exacted by soybeans (intensively grown; high water needs), nutritional yeast (sugarcane and beets replacing indigenous crops) or other niche ingredients modified to make humans feel virtuous about what they chew and swallow.

Fact: Every year at rodeos, horses die. No one pretends otherwise, but no one wants it to happen. Racehorses are overbred for a single trait, speed, which leads to weak cannon bones and broken legs. In North America 20,000 thoroughbreds are born every year. Half end up in abattoirs because they’re not fast enough. But “failed” racehorses are often bought by chuckwagon teams. Too big or heavy to win on the track, they find a new lease on life. If chuckwagon races were eradicated, an estimated 3,000 more rejected racehorses would be slaughtered or shipped overseas for horsemeat. (And chuckwagon horses enjoy a life that anyone would envy.)

Finally, culture. Rodeos may invite cowboy cosplay, but they also acknowledge history and tradition, the west’s transformation from buffalo to beef. Beyond entertainment, they showcase working animals as athletes and play a critical role in helping everyone better understand the interaction between people and livestock. Rodeo has no interest in cruelty. Why hurt your animal collaborators Like those who want to ban books without having read them, many wishing to ban rodeo have never seen an event, visited a barn or even touched an animal, let alone mucked out a stall or carried a pail of water.

Let’s ban sugary cereals and ketchup; let’s ban plastic bags and handguns. They do far more harm to humans and animals than rodeo does. The best aspect of rodeo is eliciting curiosity. Let’s not ban that.

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I’ve enjoyed camping since childhood and it continues to bring me great joy as an adult. Whether trekking for hours with a 40-pound pack into a backcountry site, backing my Boler trailer into a serviced campground, or dodging potholes and dirt bikes while searching for the perfect spot to pitch a tent and hang my hammock on Crown land, I love the entire experience.

For those of us who like to camp, hike, picnic, climb, canoe, ski, hunt or fish, Alberta has vast areas of wilderness that make these activities possible. Our parks system is made up of 473 sites that range in size, amenities and style. They span nearly 4.4 million hectares in diverse landscapes from Rocky Mountains to desert badlands. And our parks are “an equalizer for our society,” says Natalie Odd, director of the Alberta Environmental Network. “You don’t have to be an adventurer with all the best equipment and, you know, lightest-weight whatever. You can just very easily get to a park and enjoy it for a day—that’s something all Albertans can share.”

But this system of day-use areas and overnight campgrounds—one that began in 1930 with just a single site at which to picnic and swim, thanks to a premier who argued for parks legislation—has been the target of cuts by Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party government.

Changes to more than a third of the sites in Alberta’s parks system were announced via a news release on a Saturday in February 2020. The “optimization,” which was introduced with no public consultation and branded as a way to save $5-million by closing “small and under-utilized” sites, included ending cross-country ski tracksetting at three mountain locations, closing 10 parks and two visitor centres, partially closing a further 10 parks, and removing 164 sites from the parks system and making them available for “partnership opportunities” or “alternate management approaches” or “sale or transfer.” In the months that followed, a freedom of information request revealed that Environment and Parks Minister Jason Nixon had ignored advice from his staff to consult the public. Also, contrary to government claims, data showed the parks to be widely used.

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‏‏‎ ‎Cataract Creek Provincial Recreation Area was on the UCP’s February 2020 list of sites slated for “removal.” Surrounded by forest, it has 102 campsites, each with its own picnic table and firepit, first-come, first-served.

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Along with hundreds of thousands of other Albertans, I flocked to our parks in the summer and fall of 2020 as COVID-19 restrictions kept most of us adventuring closer to home. I visited nearly a dozen provincial recreation areas (PRAs) slated for closure and spent more time than ever exploring public land use zones (PLUZes) and backpacking in wildland provincial parks. I saw first-hand the many different types of parks and why this variety is a strength, given the wide range of parks users. I witnessed just how busy our “under-utilized” PRAs actually are, and I glimpsed what these sites could look like if they lose status.

I was upset when the parks changes were announced, and I spoke out on Twitter, radio and in a national newspaper op-ed. My summer and fall adventures only reinforced my belief that these spaces must keep their designations. We need them. Future generations need them. The existing parks system, which was stewarded by our government for 90 years and enjoyed by millions of citizens, wasn’t broken. So why was the UCP trying to “fix” it

My travels included visits to postage-stamp-sized protected areas surrounded by seas of Crown land. These tiny PRAs are pockets of order amid sprawling lawlessness and we desperately need these enclaves of rules, these spaces that serve as an easy introduction to the great outdoors.

One campground I visited in mid-August is a 90-minute drive from Calgary, 45 kilometres southwest of Longview and 12 kilometres down a dusty forestry trunk road, in the Cataract Creek PRA. Surrounded by forest, it has 102 campsites, each with its own picnic table and firepit. These unserviced sites work on a first-come, first-served basis—you claim your spot, drop your payment in a locked box and can stay for up to 16 consecutive nights.

When my partner, dog and I arrived after work, around 6 p.m. on a Friday evening, about a dozen sites were vacant. Around the campground’s two loops were small mountaineering tents, massive RVs, vintage Vanguard motorhomes, well-loved tent trailers and even a gleaming, metallic Airstream. The next morning we awoke to find campers at the site across from us kneeling on mats laid across a blue tarp, praying in the direction of Mecca, some 11,000 kilometres away. Up the gravel road, early-rising kids shrieked as they raced scooters past a lineup of pajama-clad campers waiting at the outhouse. On any morning in June, July or August you’ll find such a scene at many Alberta parks and recreation areas.

At the water pump, I met Wameq Ameri as he filled a jug for his family. It was his first visit to Cataract Creek. Ameri explained that while he didn’t grow up camping, he’s overjoyed to be raising kids who love it: “When they hear we’re going camping, they’re excited.”

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‏‏‎ ‎A handmade note in Kananaskis Country. With pincnic tables, firepits, road signs, bear-proof garbage cans, and outhouses, provincial recreation areas are tiny bastions of order surrounded by the chaos of Crown Land.

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About 10 minutes up the road is another busy campground. The Etherington Creek PRA has 61 campsites, and, like Cataract Creek, is among the 164 places, most of them PRAs, which were slated to be removed from the parks system. When we drove through, a homemade sign with two hearts drawn in Sharpie and the words “Support Alberta Parks” greeted campers and urged them to write their MLAs to express opposition to the UCP cuts.

When the cuts were announced, reaction was fierce from outdoor groups, parks users and non-profit organizations devoted to preserving wildlife and natural spaces. “Nobody asked for this,” says avid parks user Phillip Turnbull. “The UCP didn’t campaign on jobs, economy, pipelines—and cutting parks.” He recalls feeling “so many emotions” when he heard about the changes last year. “But I guess outrage probably sums it up.”

At a virtual event about the parks cuts, Will Gadd, a prominent mountain athlete and public speaker, described how he grew up in Alberta, spending most of his spare time in parks and wild places. Today, as a guide, he shows them off to people from around the world. “The idea of getting rid of some of these… when I explain it to them, they’re like, ‘You’re kidding, right No one could be that short-sighted,’” Gadd said. “And the answer is, unfortunately, yes [they could be].”

After the government announced its intentions, petitions launched, social media lit up and protests were scheduled for the legislature in Edmonton and at Calgary’s McDougall Centre, where attendees were encouraged to pitch a tent, make a sign on recyclable materials and dress in skiing, climbing or hiking gear. But Alberta’s first case of COVID-19 was identified in early March, and organizers were forced to cancel the gatherings. Over the ensuing months the virus changed how we lived, socialized and worked—and more Albertans than ever headed outside. Attendance at provincial parks boomed.

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Our parks system is divided into eight classifications, including provincial parks, wildland parks (which are more remote), provincial recreation areas, wilderness areas, ecological reserves, natural areas, heritage rangelands and the distinct Willmore Wilderness Park. Each allows for different activities, visitor experiences and levels of landscape protection. Alberta is also home to 19 PLUZes, more commonly referred to as Crown land or public land. These vast areas have fewer restrictions than parks and provincial recreation areas and are considered the wild west of camping. They’ve also grown in popularity in recent years as GPS devices and social media have made them more accessible.

This improved access, along with a growing population, has meant “recreational pressures that produce undesirable impacts on land, vegetation, water and wildlife, as well as increase conflicts between public land users,” the government acknowledges. I saw a whole range of such pressures last summer, from graffiti on crumbling bridge abutments to bullet holes in signs, massive ruts in gravel roads eroded by trucks and the knobby tires of off-highway vehicles, garbage strewn here and there, omnipresent beer cans and the occasional pile of human feces topped with sun-weathered toilet paper flapping in the breeze.

PRAs, at least, have a long list of rules. Pets must be on leash; quiet hours must be respected; the consumption of alcohol is limited; the number of vehicles allowed at a site is capped; the use of off-highway vehicles is restricted; campfires must be kept to designated fire rings only. But these mainstays at defined campgrounds are virtually non-existent on Crown land.

Livingstone PLUZ, just a 15-minute drive from Cataract Creek PRA, might as well be a world away. The relative order of numbered sites, picnic tables, firepits and outhouses quickly gives way to RVs and trucks that dot every flat part of the landscape. While regulations vary depending on the PLUZ, you can typically camp wherever you like on public land, as long as it’s at least 30 metres from a lake or stream.

The sounds and smells are different too. On Crown land, quads rev, guns fire and music blares. With no outhouses or garbage facilities, campers are encouraged to dig a small hole in the earth, do their business, then fill the hole back up with soil and pack out their toilet paper. But as anyone who has camped on Crown land can attest, this rule is rarely followed to the letter. A friend spent one evening this summer shovelling human feces away from what he thought, at first, was the perfect campsite at a popular location in the Upper Clearwater/Ram PLUZ. While staying at the Ghost PLUZ in September, I found an old patio chair, with a hole cut out from its seat, placed in the river. A roll of toilet paper was stashed nearby.

According to a 2015 study by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), 77 per cent of Alberta campers prefer designated sites over random camping, because of the amenities, services, access and convenience. But those who like random camping really like it. They rave about the freedom, the open skies, the lack of rules, the fact you don’t have to book in advance and you’re not sandwiched next to your neighbour. There’s a perceived political divide between these groups, with conservatives favouring personal freedom—including the freedom to set up camp wherever you like, drive ATVs and shoot guns.

I’m one of those rare Albertans who enjoy designated sites and Crown land. I like the thrill of going off the beaten track and hunting for the perfect spot, and the freedom that comes with a lack of rules. While I resent what some random campers do to the environment and prefer the symphony of nature to the drone of dirt bikes, I’ve also been to designated sites where neighbours have blasted music and thrown beer cans into the bushes. One of my favourite camping trips occurred a few Canada Day long weekends ago when 15 friends and I descended on Crown land in BC, which we had entirely to ourselves. The late-night singalongs, dogs chasing each other off-leash, and sheer size of our roaring campfire wouldn’t have been possible at a designated campground, with other
campers nearby.

Last summer, at the Livingstone PLUZ, my partner and I parked on an old logging road ravaged by off-highway vehicles and hiked up Mount Livingstone, the region’s namesake peak. We had the entire mountain to ourselves—a common benefit of adventuring on public land—and marvelled at the 360-degree views from the summit. Back at our car, we drove down Highway 40, south of Cataract Creek, and explored four more recreation areas on the government’s list for “partnership,” each adjacent to public land, where fifth-wheels of all shapes and sizes sat under a big blue sky. With their picnic tables, firepits, road signs, bear-proof garbage cans, and outhouses, these PRAs are tiny bastions of order surrounded by the relative chaos of Crown land. The PRAs Livingstone Falls, Oldman River North, Dutch Creek and Racehorse Creek have a total of 115 designated campsites. After driving through all of these, we counted a grand total of five vacant campsites. So much for being “underutilized.”

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The sounds and smells are different on Crown land. Quads rev, guns fire and music blares. While staying at the Ghost PLUZ, I found a patio chair, with a hole cut out from its seat, placed in the river.

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On this particular evening we were drawn to the freedom of the hills and intended to pitch our tent on Crown land. So we kept driving, and as the gravel road twisted and turned, we were impressed by the creativity campers had employed to guide friends and family to the spaces they’d claimed. In an area with no cellphone reception, all manner of makeshift signposts scrawled on paper plates and beer boxes were staked into the ground or affixed to trees. “Wait,” I said, as my partner slammed on the brakes to verify what we thought we saw.. “Is that… a bouncy castle?”

We reversed and discovered our eyes hadn’t deceived us. There was indeed a large, inflatable children’s play place standing tall in the middle of nowhere. Next to it was an off-highway vehicle, two small children on a dirt bike, and two long camper-trailers—a striking image of camping on Crown land.

As we kept driving, scanning for a place to set up a more modest camp of our own, we passed a Yield sign peppered with bullet holes, dodged oncoming dirt bikes, and watched as a herd of cows was guided away from the road by a team on horseback. I wondered if, under the UCP’s plan, the enclaves of designated campgrounds we’d visited earlier would be absorbed into this free-for-all.

“It’s clear there’s a huge difference between parks and public land; both are important to the lives of Albertans,” Becky Best-Bertwistle with CPAWS said at a virtual information session in November. “[But] removing parks from the system will be almost impossible to reverse, and after the year we’ve had, Albertans want more parks and protected areas.”

Diversity is a key feature of Alberta’s parks system. Random camping is intimidating for tourists, for people new to camping, even for many Albertans who go a couple of times a year. Not everyone has the high-clearance truck or SUV needed to navigate the rough roads on a lot of public land. Not everyone is comfortable without cell service. And, let’s be honest, not everyone is OK with digging a hole to poop in. Conversely, not everyone loves the limitations of a designated campground, the proximity to neighbouring campers, or all those rules. There’s something freeing about staking out a piece of raw territory as your own, if only for a weekend.

Alberta’s parks system is strong because it offers this range of options. It has fully furnished yurts and flush toilets for people new to camping, well-marked trails near major centres for novice hikers, and visitor centres where people can ask staff for tips and advice. People new to hiking or fishing can get their feet wet by bringing rented equipment to an amenity-rich facility a quick drive from a city, while those who’ve been heading outside for decades and own vehicles, trailers and toys specific to their hobbies have swaths of remote land to explore.

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Clockwise from top: A sign peppered with bullet holes. In an area with no cellphone reception, makeshift directions are scrawled on paper plates. Some trails allow all-terrain vehicles, quads and dirt bikes.

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While Albertans spent the pandemic summer and autumn outside, questions and confusion swirled about the future of the places they were exploring. The opposition NDP launched a “Don’t Go Breaking My Parks” information and sticker campaign in July. In August the Alberta Environmental Network and the Alberta chapters of CPAWS unveiled a “Defend Alberta Parks” lawn-sign initiative. Natalie Odd, with the AEN, was thrilled when the first 20 signs went out the door in August. “I thought these signs might last us for months,” she recalls of the initial 1,000 orders. “It didn’t turn out that way.”

The campaign, which launched on a shoestring budget, had by the end of 2020 seen some 1,500 volunteers deliver more than 17,000 signs to addresses across the province. Odd believes this success owes to the simple message and Albertans’ deep connection to their wild spaces. “This is about our personal experience in the outdoors with our families,” she says. “It’s a very important part of our experience living in Alberta.”

Other campaigns similarly united parks users. “I didn’t want to just sit around and complain. I wanted to actively do something to try and make a difference,” says Phillip Turnbull, who created and sold a 2021 calendar featuring photos of Alberta’s parks, with profits going to organizations fighting the cuts. Geospatial scientist Tanya Yeomans mapped the affected locations and collected stories about each park from people who’d visited them. “The same spot may be a place to grieve the loss of a family member and also a place to propose to a loved one,” she wrote about her project. Sparked by “a buildup of frustration and creative energy,” Nakita Rubuliak coordinated Arts for Alberta Parks (see p 62), which saw artists create a piece inspired by each park on the list for removal. In response to UCP claims that sites on the chopping block were underutilized, a project called “I Use Alberta Parks” asked people to share personal stories about the sites they visited.

Premier Jason Kenney repeatedly downplayed his government’s changes and characterized opposition to the cuts as “foreign interest groups like green left organizations that are lying to people in order to raise money.” But critics dismissed this as rhetoric. NDP opposition leader Rachel Notley said at a July 2020 press conference, “The premier is being too cute by half when he says no parks will be sold. That’s true. But what they’re doing is reclassifying provincial recreation areas back into public lands, which then can be… sold off or leased to other private groups. And this opens up these areas to private commercial use.”

In November 2020 the UCP unveiled a “My Parks Will Go On” campaign to counter what they called “misinformation.” Environment Minister Nixon also hosted a virtual parks town hall, which marked the first opportunity Albertans had to ask him about the changes—nine months after they’d been announced. Moderators, however, disabled the chat function through which the public could ask questions, with most of the live questions instead coming from Nixon’s UCP colleagues. Nixon told viewers “the reality is we actually have not changed anything really significantly within our system.” The Defend Alberta Parks campaign continued to receive sign requests.  

And then, in late December 2020, the government posted yet another press release. “As part of Budget 2020, Alberta’s government decided to work with Albertans to continue operating a number of provincial parks facilities across the province,” it announced—as though the proposed park closures, and the justification of saving government some $5-million, had been a figment of the public’s imagination.

From the start, government communication on this file has been secretive, deceptive and confusing. The UCP’s backtracking press release landed in reporters’ inboxes after 4:00 p.m. three days before Christmas. It said, “All sites will maintain their parks designations,” and declared the government had “secured or maintained partnerships for 170 parks and public recreation area sites.” In followup interviews, Nixon refused to name the partners, say how many were new or divulge what activities would be allowed under the partnerships.

Skeptics of a government that refuses to answer questions and shifts its messaging simply don’t believe the plan has been walked back. They worry that parks and campgrounds could still lose protection through legislative changes as part of the Kenney government’s parallel revisions to public land management, a process which remains ongoing. Many areas on the “partnership list” are surrounded by coal leases, with coal exploration having ramped up under the UCP—new leases sold, new roads built and exploratory holes drilled. And then there’s the issue of who the partners are and what they’ll be allowed to do.

I too remain unconvinced. I wonder if protected sites will be absorbed into adjacent Crown land, or if they’ll be sullied by coal mining, or if new private “partners” will transform them into RV parks, chopping down trees in an attempt to squeeze in as many sites as possible and maximize profits.

As I read the December news release, I couldn’t help but think about my adventures last summer. The evening after we stayed at Cataract Creek PRA, my partner and I found a spot to random camp in the Livingstone PLUZ. As our dog raced around and gunshots rang out in the distance, we found a flat patch of relatively brush-free land amid the dried cow dung, rock-ring firepits and cans and garbage that had been left behind, to stake our tent and hang our hammock.

This isn’t the future our protected parks and PRAs deserve. I’d hazard to guess it’s not what Alberta’s fifth premier, John Brownlee, had in mind when he created our parks system in the late 1920s. I’d bet, too, it’s not what Premier Peter Lougheed imagined when he worked tirelessly in the 1970s to protect large swaths of land in the Rockies. Alberta’s parks system truly has something for everyone, no matter if you’re new to the great outdoors or, like me, you’ve been enjoying it for decades. These spaces exist thanks to a long line of politicians who came before Kenney, leaders who had the foresight to think about future generations. 

Annalise Klingbeil is a former Calgary Herald journalist. She co-writes GoOutside.substack.com, a weekly newsletter about the great outdoors.

The post Kenney VS. Campgrounds appeared first on Alberta Views.

I’m here to talk to Notley about running, and we’re conducting the interview, literally, on the run. I’m a little worried. I want to hit all my questions, so I’ve written notes in Sharpie on the back of my left hand. I want to make sure I catch her answers accurately, so I’m clutching an audio recorder in my right. More than anything, I’m nervous about keeping up with her.

As Canadian politicians go, Rachel Notley is pretty damned fast. It’s three days before the 2019 Melissa’s Road Race in Banff, and she’s registered to compete in the half-marathon. The  average woman in her age group will finish the 21-kilometre event in about two hours and 20 minutes. Her goal is to run Melissa’s in under two.

It’s all a question of pace, the time it takes the runner to cover a kilometre. Before the interview, a member of her staff discreetly calls to ask me about mine. On a short run, downhill, with a tailwind, I average a 6:15, but Notley’s race results show she’s capable of something closer to a 5:45. This is why I’m nervous.

As we chat in the deserted lobby, I’m relieved to hear that Notley is on her taper, the point in her training where she’s dialing back her pace and distance to rest up for Melissa’s. We’re also waiting for Calgary MLA Joe Ceci, her regular running partner, whom Notley teases relentlessly for being “slow.” There’s a chance I’ll survive this encounter after all.

When Ceci arrives, we step outside into a perfect runner’s morning—a cool fall day with a pretty sunrise casting an orange light on the downtown office buildings that surround us.

While Notley sets her running watch, Ceci proposes an hour-long route following the pathway on the south bank of the Bow River. Coincidentally, it takes us through his riding, Calgary-Buffalo, and as we run, we’re greeted by respectful nods from fellow runners and startled double takes from everyone else.

The banter between Notley and Ceci starts soon after we set out from Eau Claire. As Notley is describing her time as premier, when her security detail would plan her running routes, Ceci breaks in to tell me, “Rachel regularly broke her EPU”—the Executive Protection Unit responsible for protecting the premier and members of cabinet.

“I did not regularly break my EPU,” she scolds Ceci in a familiar, jokey way. He chides her with his trademark smile: “It happened a lot.” She pauses and then concedes, “It is true that once or twice I broke them.” She says it with a hint of pride.

By the numbers, Rachel Notley is a serious runner. She’s hands-on, following a training program from a couple of courses she’s taken at her local Running Room (they also help her find replacements for her beloved but now discontinued Asics) and competes in several races every year. At Ceci’s prompting, she started tracking her mileage and set a goal to run 2,000 kilometres in a year. That’s slightly less than 40 kilometres a week. She runs regardless of whether she’s travelling or the Legislature is sitting. She runs in winter, even during her ski vacations. Notley reveals that her husband, Lou Arab, started running recently. She admits, “I’ve hectored him into it.”

But Notley is also a social runner, and she recruits friends, colleagues and family to train and race with her. “It’s hard to be disciplined enough to get out the door when you’re on your own,” she says. “When I make plans, it’s way easier to follow through.”

Notley hasn’t always been this way, and she shares a frank appraisal of her life before running. She started smoking in her teens, and by her twenties, she says, “I had KFC on speed dial. And they would just come to my house with dinner… I was not a healthy person.” Then she noticed runners. “I always looked at runners [and thought] ‘Gosh, those people are so cool, like, I just have so much respect for how healthy and refreshed and happy they all seem. And I wish that could be me—but that’s not who I am.” And then I decided. ‘Well, I could be.’”

Running went hand in hand with her struggle to quit smoking. “I (still) consider myself a recovered smoker,” she says. “I used to smoke a pack a day. And when I quit, it took at least five or six tries.” She followed a familiar cycle—every time she quit, she’d start running again, and every time she’d have a relapse, she’d stop running, telling herself, ‘Well, you’re smoking again, you big loser; so much for being healthy.’ ” When I ask about why she was so tough on herself, she catches my eye and like any good politician quickly reframes the discussion. “You need to be helpfully skeptical of yourself at all times, you know?” She pauses thoughtfully, “In a [way that says] ‘I am confident enough to consider maybe this could be done better, or differently.’”

Notley was 32 when she finally quit, and running became the reward for staying off cigarettes. “Endorphins,” she says. “I replaced nicotine with endorphins.” When her attempts at transformation finally stuck, it took her husband by surprise. Mimicking Lou’s reaction, she says, “What happened to the woman I fell in love with Stay on the couch with me. What are you doing?!”

We’re crossing the bridge to St. Patrick’s Island, when Notley asks Ceci if he wants to walk. It’s not a jibe—she’s providing a bit of gentle coaching, reminding him that his training plan involves 10-minute intervals of running followed by a minute of walking. While we walk, I ask her about how running fit with her time as premier. She starts by telling a story about a mop.

“Three or four days after the [2015] election, I finally got to take off a bit of time, and my house was a disaster. All I wanted to do was clean up, because it’s… about having some control left in your life… I didn’t have a proper mop, and I couldn’t just hop in my car and run down to a hardware store and buy a mop… So I started calling my friends… ‘Oh, my God, I just need a mop.’ Two or three different mops were delivered, but they’re not the kind that I wanted. I almost broke into tears, because I’d just lost all control.”

Control is elusive when you’re a politician, and Notley saw it disappear quickly after she was first elected MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona in 2008. “I was one of two people in caucus and I had 13 critic areas. And so I’m just like, yeah, sorry, this part of my life is over.” She was running fewer than three times a week and racing in the occasional Banff–Jasper Relay.

But winning the premier’s office in 2015 presented an unexpected opportunity. “When we got government, suddenly I had all these people around me who would run on my schedule. I discovered that the only time in my life where I had any control at all was before my workday started. So I started running more… I didn’t think that would happen.” As Alberta struggled with deepening recession and conflicts with other provinces, running became a critical way to relieve stress. 

“And keep the weight down, too,” adds Ceci. Notley agrees emphatically.

The then-Premier soon resumed training for half-marathons with the support of friends and colleagues such as Ceci, then-minister of finance, and Cheryl Oates, her director of communications. Says Notley, “(Oates was) super, super, super fit. She wasn’t a runner, but then we started travelling all over the place, and she became a runner.”

And then, of course, there was her security detail. Soon after Notley became premier, the EPU started escorting her while she ran. Joe jumps in again with “Broke’ em!” but Notley admits it’s a joke. Her escorts were professionals, fit and strong, and it only got more challenging when the Sheriffs Branch started filling vacancies with young recruits who also were runners. Some were much faster than Notley. “I’ve actually had my best running times with EPU,”
she says.

It was a game changer for Notley, but she wasn’t the only one whose limits were being pushed. “There was a… conversation we’d have when they’d pick me up [in the morning]. A couple of them would look at me hopefully and ask ‘Is Joe coming?’ I’d be, like, ‘Yes, today’s your lucky day.’”

We’re on our return trip, running west past the Harvie Passage on the south side of the Bow. I’m thankful that Notley’s picked a gentle Zone 1 pace, which my training plan describes as feeling “easy and controlled, can talk in full sentences.”

We pause for a brief walk as Notley shares another story about EPU. On hot summer days, Notley and Ceci started taking mid-run plunges into the Bow River. Pointing to the bank, she says, “In the summer when it’s hot… we’ll stop here and go for a swim. And then keep [running].” Her detail wasn’t impressed by the antics of the then-premier and finance minister. “Honestly, they did not love it,” she laughs. “But eventually they succumbed and they took pictures.” They asked her to tell their boss that she’d ordered them to stand down.

As we near the Simmons building, I glance at my hand for another question. It’s about the optics of other sporty politicians. Ceci jumps in with a story about inviting federal finance minister Bill Morneau out for an early morning run in Edmonton, only to discover that Morneau had arranged a photo op. “Of course, I’d just rolled out of bed, and Bill looked like a polished gazelle…”

Certainly, Notley’s social media feed mentions her running and, at times, her staff have suggested promoting it with voters, but she isn’t completely comfortable doing so. “Not everybody is privileged enough to be able to work this in or healthy enough to be able to do it,” she says. “Maybe it’s a little obnoxious to brag about [it].”

When we get back to Eau Claire, both Notley and Ceci are sweating but they’re relaxed and energetic and making plans for Melissa’s. Race day will be cold, and they’re discussing what layers they’re taking when I say goodbye.

The following week, I notice something about my running. Unconsciously, I’ve been working up my pace to try and match Notley’s, and I’m pretty happy when I run a 5:43 at a Saturday morning 5K. Still, I’m exhausted when I finish and I know I can’t sustain it through a half-marathon.

Curious, I look online at the results from the Melissa’s Road Race. I’m pleased to see Ceci has successfully completed his first half-marathon, but Notley runs a 2:09:02. It’s respectable, but she’s missed her two-hour goal. I wonder what happened, so I decide to follow up at a budget town hall she’s attending in Calgary. I text her staff, and while they’re encouraging, they warn me she’s “not excited about her Melissa’s time” and won’t talk about it.

Arriving, I immediately run into Ceci, and he’s an open book. We talk about his finish and then he shares Notley’s story. She was running with a friend who started feeling ill, and after walking her to an aid station, she went on to try and finish the race in her goal time. Her pace, with unplanned walking, was still a 6:07. 

As we talk, the room fills with NDP supporters. There’s a buzz in the air, a little like the start line at a race. Soon, Notley heads for the stage and the audience greets her with enthusiastic applause. She focuses on delivering a passionate, well-paced speech about budget cuts and spends over an hour listening to concerns from audience members.

I catch her eye as she heads for the door but she smiles and keeps going. Instead, I talk with Shannon Phillips, MLA for Lethbridge-West. Also a runner, she says Notley “will run with anyone. She’s not that person that needs to be first or anything.” A moment later, she contradicts herself, “Rachel’s super competitive… She’ll go and compete with that bodyguard guy.”

Later that fall, Notley is in Victoria, racing at the Goodlife Fitness Marathon. It’s her last race of the year and a chance to redeem herself. On the day, I follow her progress on the race tracker and she runs it in 1:57:55, averaging a pace of 5:36 over the entire 21 kilometres.

When I ask about it, Notley replies in a text message, saying she’s proud of the accomplishment but already thinking ahead to her next goal—running the half in under 1:55.

Dave Robertson is a Calgary-based trail runner and writer who covers civic affairs, the urban lifestyle and outdoor adventure.
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The post Why She Runs appeared first on Alberta Views.

Parks Canada didn’t even have to try to meet the growth target. Tourism in Banff National Park alone grew by more than 30 per cent between 2010 and 2017.

As if that massive increase didn’t strain already overcrowded parks enough, the federal government made entry to all of our national parks free in 2017. Banff and Jasper—with their gate revenues erased—had to establish new temporary parking lots, rent buses to move people around, hire extra staff to direct traffic, and cope with a spike in wildlife conflicts from naive new visitors. A lot of Canadians simply avoided the mess.

People like simple ideas and sharp contrasts. That’s why, for most of our national parks’ 134-year history, media coverage has framed the core conundrum facing the parks as “balance.” It’s easier to think in binary terms about a simple conflict between use and protection than to dig deeper into why traffic jams—rather than the peaceful enjoyment of nature—increasingly define the park experience.

I had coffee with a former colleague the other day. She told me the discussion in the mountain national parks now is not how to grow tourism but how to cope with massive overcrowding. They are even asking the Walt Disney Company for ideas.

Here’s an idea: Do only what you’re mandated to do. The Canada National Parks Act establishes the core mandate for the places we consider most special. The dedication clause in that law has not changed since 1930 in spite of numerous other changes to the law that gives our parks their existence. That’s no accident; it defines what Canadians want their parks to be.

“The national parks of Canada are hereby dedicated to the people of Canada for their benefit, education and enjoyment… and the parks shall be maintained and made use of so as to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

That clause makes no reference to tourism. Our national parks are dedicated only to Canadians—not to visitors from the US, Germany, Japan, Korea or Great Britain. Yet Canada flogs its parks to the world as tourism destinations. Politicians and parkocrats alike boast about their role in helping Canada’s balance of trade. Mass tourism may frivolously generate millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases and create traffic gridlock in once-peaceful parks, but that’s okay because each tourist leaves a whack of foreign dollars behind—new dollars, compared to the recycled ones Canadians spend.

Parks Canada is today almost entirely captive to the tourism industry. Environmental groups warn against turning our national parks into versions of Disneyland.

The powerful influence wielded by tourism operators offers more evidence of how bad this mandate creep has become. When Rocky Mountains Park (now Banff) was first established, the government decided that the private sector should provide basic services—lodgings, food, recreational gear—to the Canadians who were expected to visit their new park. So, although national parks were meant to remain in the public domain, government made carefully limited provision for businesses to lease property and sell services that visitors would need. It was a pragmatic compromise meant to support—not supplant—the park’s core mandate.

Banff today has tattoo parlours, cannabis shops, high-end fashion outlets, bulk mail contractors and jewellery stores—hardly the kinds of essential services Canadians need in order to benefit from, be educated about and enjoy our natural heritage.

Passage of the Parks Canada Agency Act in 1998 helped lock in the shift from inviting Canadians to experience nature to making money from tourism. Meant to buffer Parks Canada from political interference, the new law also made the agency reliant on visitor fees. In effect, it codified a new, unofficial mandate: processing credit cards. Instead of riding the brake pedal on profit-hungry businesses, Parks Canada became one.

Parks Canada is today almost entirely captive to the tourism industry. Environmental groups warn against turning our national parks into versions of Disneyland. Ironic, then, that park bureaucrats are now consulting with Disney for advice on how to cope with mobs of foreign tourists.

The solution to this mess is not better tourism management; Canada’s national parks were never meant for tourists. If there even is a solution, it has to start with acknowledging that our national parks have no legal mandate for international tourism. They exist solely to help Canadians better know, love and protect our nation’s natural heritage.

Kevin Van Tighem’s latest book, Our Place: Changing the Nature of Alberta, was released in spring 2017 by RMB.

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A horrified witness, Bill Pratt, president of the organizing committee for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, resolved then and there to spearhead the development of a trail system for non-motorized activities such as hiking, cycling and horseback riding. Four years later, on March 21, 1989, while speaking at a trail-planning meeting, he observed that Calgary and Kananaskis had some of Canada’s best bike paths but lacked a secure connecting route. His proposal to link such paths marked the birth of our “New National Dream,” a cross-country trail that would be safe and accessible for ordinary Canadians. Interviewed by the Calgary Herald, Pratt stated emphatically: “I don’t want to see any more cars plowing into cyclists.”

The non-profit Trans Canada Trail Foundation organization launched in 1992 as part of Canada’s 125th anniversary celebrations. Pratt was president; Pierre Camu, a former president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, became board chairman. Riding a wave of optimism, the new foundation described the Trans Canada Trail as a millennium project, to be completed by July 1, 2000. Later, as unanticipated obstacles accumulated, this target was extended to July 1, 2017, Canada’s 150th birthday. Canada already possessed many excellent pathways, making up 20 per cent of the planned trail, and Pratt envisioned quickly and economically linking them by “recycling” abandoned rail corridors.

At its best, the Trans Canada Trail would be six metres wide and include two parallel pathways to accommodate hikers, cyclists, roller-bladers, wheelchairs, horses and—in winter—cross-country skiers. The east–west route would feature a hard surface in high-use areas, to be extended eventually across the country. Part of the northern route, passing through Edmonton and Inuvik to the Arctic Ocean, would include a waterway, the Mackenzie River. During winter months, snowmobiles might be permitted in remote regions not accessible to hikers or cross-country skiers. The trail would be dotted at regular intervals with shelters and, when necessary, campsites.

Although the founders waxed eloquent about the trail’s potential to foster unity and stimulate tourism, they placed special emphasis on public safety. Pratt insisted that the trail be built far enough from roads to mask traffic noise and avoid collisions. According to David Hargrave, then Alberta TrailNet coordinator, automobile accidents involving cyclists and pedestrians motivated many people to join the Trans Canada Trail movement. He told the Herald in 1994: “We don’t want it along a highway or in a ditch. We want the whole thing to be like a park.” Safety-minded organizations, including the RCMP and the Canadian Truckers Association, quickly endorsed the project.

Like many Canadians, my wife Elizabeth was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Trans Canada Trail. We made charitable donations, “bought” metre-long sections, acquired logoed merchandise, purchased maps and guidebooks and became card-carrying “Trail Builders.” We eagerly anticipated a world-class greenway that would connect communities, foster healthy lifestyles, respect environmental values, encourage active transportation and, most importantly, provide a safe travel route for pedestrians and cyclists.

Elizabeth firmly believed motor vehicles pose an extreme danger to cyclists on roadways—it is a self-evident truth. When she agreed to accompany me each summer on a three-week cycling holiday, she set one solemn condition: no roads. Sensible and careful, very safety-conscious, she refused to risk her life by venturing onto routes used by motor vehicles. I thought her fears were exaggerated—I’d been riding on busy streets and highways without incident since childhood—but I was happy to acquiesce. It was the least I could do. Since our first meeting at age 12, she had been the love of my life.

For almost a decade I planned our annual trips meticulously, poring over detailed maps and trail guides, methodically marking out our daily itinerary. We pedalled in Europe—England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Slovakia—and in alternate years our home country, Canada. Here we travelled on the Trans Canada Trail, widely advertised as a safe and scenic coast-to-coast-to-coast greenway, but where—much to our consternation—the official guidebooks repeatedly took us on perilous journeys along motorized thoroughfares and highways. Until one sunny afternoon in Prince Edward Island in 2012, when Elizabeth was struck down by a tradesman’s blunt-nosed van and died on a lonely rural roadside.

I struggled desperately to survive devastating trauma—but also to comprehend the tragic failure of Canada’s much-vaunted trail-building dream. Deep down I already knew the answer but wouldn’t admit it, until a long-suffering trails official quietly confided: “Ed, the emperor has no clothes.” The Trans Canada Trail—pretentiously renamed “The Great Trail” in 2016—has become little more than a dangerous hoax. It is not a greenway; it is a motorway. How did this happen What went wrong?

The TCT Foundation proposed to achieve their awe-inspiring dream for a new national transportation corridor by taking a page from Calgary’s successful Olympics: It would rely on volunteers, private donations and corporate sponsorships. This strategy had generated $450-million in recreational facilities for Calgary; Pratt believed it would produce $440-million in non-motorized trails for Canada. Governments—federal, provincial and municipal combined—would assume only a tenth of the total cost.

Unfortunately this model soon proved inadequate. In a sparsely populated country with large stretches of uninhabited wilderness, there is often no local community to provide volunteer labour. Nonetheless Deborah Apps, president and CEO of the TCT organization, says the project “is very much a grassroots endeavour,” dependent on “local, and often volunteer, trail builders.”

Equally problematic, however, has been rural opposition. The Trans Canada Trail currently passes through nearly 1,000 municipalities and more than 15,000 communities which, quite naturally, give priority to local needs, not national projects. Why should they put resources into a trail intended for outsiders (Only effete urbanites ride bicycles, I have been told; rugged rednecks drive quads.) They also have concerns about property ownership, liability, maintenance and potential trespassing.

Top L to bottom R: The Trail at Waskatenau, AB and Prince SK; Thunder Bay, ON and Stanley Park, MB (Edmund Aunger)

In Alberta, for example, rural protests led to the shelving of a proposed Calgary–Edmonton trail to be built on the 303 km Irricana–Drumheller–Camrose railbed at an estimated cost in 2000 of $6.3-million. Although CP Rail donated a section between Irricana and Torrington to the TCT Foundation—subsequently transferred to Alberta TrailNet—adjacent landowners successfully lobbied municipal councils to refuse zoning for trail construction, and then erected illegal barriers and warning signs to block access.

This recurring opposition has played havoc with route planning. As it frantically searches for available pathways and co-operative communities, the Trans Canada Trail has leapfrogged in all directions, turned around and hopped back, then added new paths and abandoned old ones. The result has been a dizzying inflation in the trail’s proposed length. Originally predicted to be 15,000 km and subsequently projected at 16,200, 18,000 and 22,500 km, the planned route now logs in at 24,000 km. By contrast, the Trans-Canada Highway from Vancouver to Halifax is 5,890 km, and the Via Rail trip is 6,350 km.

Lacking both uniform standards and control, the Trans Canada Trail includes a confusing and dangerous hodgepodge of mountain-bike paths, roadside ditches, dirt ruts, gravel roads and hazardous ATV trails. The original dream lies in widely scattered pieces, unlikely ever to be restored unless the Canadian government intervenes and establishes rational standards for quality, safety and routing.

Surprisingly the Trans-Canada Highway, first proposed in 1912, faced similar challenges. Provincial and municipal governments, preoccupied with local construction, balked at building an interprovincial roadway passing through sparsely populated regions. In 1948, however, Canada’s new minister of Reconstruction & Supply, Robert Winters, seeking to reduce post-war unemployment, championed a hard-surface highway that would follow the shortest practicable route across Canada.

At a federal–provincial conference that December Ottawa promised to pay 50 per cent of the construction expenses if the provinces met agreed standards not only for surfacing but for gradient, curvature, sight distances and load-bearing capacity. (Alberta unsuccessfully demanded a contribution of 100 per cent!) When the Trans Canada Highway was finally completed in 1970, the federal government had paid $825-million of the $1.4-billion total cost.

In January 2000 Canadian Geographic revealed that nearly 30 per cent of the Trans Canada Trail would be open to use by all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes. Michael Haynes, executive director of the Nova Scotia Trails Federation, told the magazine that a new reality had superseded the old vision: “The starting position in Nova Scotia is that all forms of recreational use are acceptable. So far, ATVs—one of the fastest-growing modes of transportation in the country—are allowed on about 80 per cent of the more than 600 km of the TCT in Nova Scotia.”

Many trail supporters, including the original founders, were outraged by this revelation. Off-road vehicles, they protested, would cause environmental damage and threaten public safety, effectively driving away the intended users—pedestrians and cyclists. Interviewed shortly before his death, Bill Pratt declared that unless the TCT organization refused official designation for motorized sections, the trail would be of no use. Pierre Camu, former TCT board chair, also denounced the expanded access: “The trail is designed for walkers, hikers, cyclists, children and families. It’s not designed for motorized vehicles.”

In summer of 2008 Elizabeth and I set out on a cycling trip that included Alberta’s longest stretch of “operational” Trans Canada Trail, the 177-km Iron Horse Trail linking Waskatenau and Heinsburg. We soon discovered, however, that the trail—composed of loose gravel, soft sand and rough ballast—was used only by ATVs. After struggling laboriously for 16 km, and yielding frequently to ATVs, we finally detoured onto hard-packed township roads that, ironically, had less motorized traffic.

Shortly afterwards, with undisguised indignation, Elizabeth announced that she would campaign for the development of a Trans Canada Trail in Alberta that would be safe and accessible for pedestrians and cyclists. I was startled and dismayed. “You’d have to get involved in politics,” I warned, “and that’s going to be frustrating and futile. Don’t do it.” But she wouldn’t be swayed, and I reluctantly promised that I would do my best to support her.

During this time, in a concerted but unpublicized effort to connect dispersed rural communities, the Trans Canada Trail made a major transition to roadways. In 2010 the National Trails Coalition reported that 36 per cent of the land-based trail was on roadways (including highways), a proportion that has now spiralled to 50 per cent. (This “land-based” distinction is important. The TCT organization counts more than 7,000 km of waterway as “trail” and has recently claimed that only 35 per cent of the entire trail is on roadways.)

After setting out on a much-anticipated cycling holiday in Manitoba—where the TCT was proudly proclaimed to be 91 per cent operational, Elizabeth and I suffered a rude awakening. The trail was mainly on roadways. On July 12, 2010, we pedalled north from Winnipeg, taking a zigzag course along peaceful residential streets and then a meandering route along busier suburban avenues and rural highways, stopping regularly to consult our trail map. At the 30-km mark we gratefully reached a paved cycling trail built on the tiered embankment of the Red River Floodway that, according to the TCT guidebook, would take us directly to our evening destination, 20 km farther, the town of Lockport.

The trail ended after only 4 km—the rest had yet to be built—and we dragged our bikes through the brush to the nearest roadway. Then, as traffic whistled terrifyingly close by, we cycled grimly along the two-lane Henderson Highway. Near Lockport, we regained the Trans Canada Trail as it joined Highway 44, and then dodged and jostled with tourist traffic and heavy machinery on a signed detour. That evening, when we took refuge in our bed and breakfast, Elizabeth vented. “That’s it,” she declared furiously. “I’m not doing this ride anymore. It’s too dangerous. I’m going back home to Edmonton.” I had no choice but to cancel our vacation.

When I met with Alberta’s minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation, Christine Cusanelli, to promote the construction of safe trails for hikers and cyclists, she disclosed that the government was preparing a Recreation Trails Act, and that “the emphasis for the first few years will be on motorized recreation by off-highway vehicles as this is the greatest pressure on our trail systems.”

Her successor, Richard Starke, responded to lobbyists by promising full access for motorized vehicles on public trails and in provincial parks. “The use of motorized recreational vehicles, whether quads or trikes or bikes in the summer or snowmobiles in the winter, is huge business,” he told legislators. “We’ve been meeting with our Off-Highway Vehicle Association as well as our Snowmobile Association on ways of engaging our stakeholder groups and expanding opportunities in that regard.”

The BC government soon followed suit, yielding meekly to similar pressures, by opening its extensive network of rail trails to motorized vehicles. Since the 1990s the province had acquired more than 2,000 km of former rail corridors and designated almost 600 km as Trans Canada Trail. On August 13, 2014, in a letter to Jeff Mohr, president of the Quad Riders ATV Association of BC, the province explained its revised and “more realistic approach”: “In the more rural and wilderness portions of the trails, non-motorized designations are impractical to implement and not always supported by local residents. Due to higher ORV use in these areas, trail surface conditions tend to deteriorate and cycling use is lower. Managing these types of areas for non-motorized use does not justify the exceptional costs required to maintain high-quality tread surfaces.”

In short, motorized vehicles had already ruined many sections of the Trans Canada Trail and, without new expenditures, these paths were no longer suitable for cyclists.

I’ve repeatedly called on the federal government—in particular Mélanie Joly, minister of Canadian Heritage, responsible for Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations—to fund the Trans Canada Trail as they did the Trans-Canada Highway. A federal spokesman said the government would continue putting millions into the project but would not dictate how the money was spent. How many millions exactly In 2015 the Government of Canada donated $5.5-million to the TCT Foundation while dispensing $150-million to local communities for infrastructure projects—picnic shelters, flagpoles, dock repairs—to mark Canada’s upcoming 150th anniversary.

In early 2015, with 20 per cent of the trail still incomplete, and with July 1, 2017, looming on the horizon, national organizers directed the regional associations to route the Trans Canada Trail along highway shoulders where possible, in order to close the remaining gaps. At that time, Alberta had completed only 43 per cent of its land-based trail, and the implications were obvious.

In the wake of that spring’s dramatic provincial election, I requested a meeting with Ricardo Miranda, Alberta’s new minister of Culture and Tourism, hoping to brief him on the gravity of the trail situation and to present a petition with more than 1,000 signatures demanding safe and accessible non-motorized trails. He refused a meeting but wrote back on March 16, 2016, that “we are working closely with Alberta Transportation to determine the safest temporary on-road routings as part of Trans Canada Trail’s 2017 connection plan.”

In response I asked him to impose “an immediate moratorium on the routing of the Trans Canada Trail along roads and highways.” He never replied. Shortly afterward, in defiance of widespread local opposition, the Trans Canada Trail organization designated Highway 22, linking Cochrane and Bragg Creek, as operational trail. Consequently, more than 30 years after the horrific accident that gave birth to our dream of a cross-country greenway, pedestrians and cyclists travelling between Calgary and Kananaskis are still compelled to take a highway route. In a life-threatening charade, this highway is now labelled the “The Great Trail.”

Elizabeth and I had fond memories of New Brunswick—its welcoming people, its bilingual culture and its scenic beauty—and for many years we longed to return on our bicycles. But a quick look at the Trans Canada Trail map revealed we would have little choice but to ride on highways. So Elizabeth quickly vetoed it, insisting instead that we take our annual cycling holiday in Prince Edward Island.

Not content to leave well enough alone, I adjusted our plans so that we could fly first to Moncton, New Brunswick, and then cycle along the Trans Canada Trail to Prince Edward Island. Unfortunately the first 50 km of this trip would be on a two-lane highway, and when Elizabeth discovered this, shortly after our arrival in Moncton, she was very displeased, noting in her diary: “Ed is ticked that I don’t want to do this part on roads. I’m ticked that he doesn’t listen when I say avoid roads.” And so, after a somewhat strained discussion, we disassembled the bikes, packed them into cardboard boxes and took the train to Sackville.

Elizabeth Sovis near Sackville, New Brunswick, 2012. (Edmund Aunger)

From there we pedalled along a railbed, struggling through minefields of swampy potholes and jagged rocks, until we reached Malden. Then, on Saturday, July 14, 2012, with huge sighs of relief, we loaded our bicycles onto a shuttle bus to carry us over the 13-km Confederation Bridge to Borden-Carleton, PEI.

After disembarking, we cycled northeast for 18 km on a red, hard-packed stone-dust path until we reached Emerald, the junction with the main trail, and then turned right, heading easterly towards Hunter River, the overnight destination recommended in the Trans Canada Trail guidebook. The trail was smooth and flat and comfortingly non-motorized; the setting was pastoral and peaceful and idyllic.

At Hunter River, however, we stopped and stared in stunned silence and incredulity at the designated route—the only route—to our accommodation: a two-lane highway. There was an intermittent shoulder, sandy and gravelly, often downsloping, seldom rideable, and we proceeded apprehensively along the white fog-line marking the road’s edge. Elizabeth was visibly sullen and upset, a smouldering volcano preparing to erupt when we arrived.

But we never did arrive. A few minutes later, she was struck by a brown Chevrolet Express Van. The impact severed her brain stem and threw her body 50 metres.

In the year 2012, Elizabeth Ann Sovis was one of 61 cyclists killed by motor vehicles on Canadian roads. Another 6,608 were injured.

Edmund A. Aunger is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alberta, Campus Saint-Jean.

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