Jasper Park, in Alberta’s Rockie Mountains is to get a new attraction, the ‘Glacier Walk’:
“Glacier Discovery Walk” consists of a 400-metre trail with a glass-floored observation deck extending 30 metres into the Sunwapta Valley near Highway 93.
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The project was approved over the objections of environmentalists who think the walk might upset sheep, or something:
“The truth is we don’t know a lot about what the impacts to wildlife like mountain goats or big horned sheep will be…we know they travel through the park and we know they get threatened by things that are above them and we believe this type of threat has not been fully assessed.”
The site of the Walk, the Columbia Icefields, is a place where the awesome power and beauty of the natural world is raw and rugged. You’d think greens would support a project that gets people close to the glaciers they’re always trying to save.
Perhaps they’re worried the glacier might start going the wrong way and upset their fundraising.
I was a regular visitor to the Parks when I lived in Alberta and the Icefields Parkway is arguably one of the most scenic drives on the planet. If the Discovery Walk encourages more people to see the wonder of the Rockies, that’s a good thing.
“and we know they get threatened by things that are above them” – trees spook sheep and goats? I know enviro-loons talk to trees, but when was the last time they had one (sheep/goat, not a tree) in for interview? “Tell me your worst fears” …. “Mint sauce!”.
Doug – sounds like I’d love it there. Back in the 60s (1960s, not 1860s, I’m not THAT old) I walked the Pennine Way, the first long-distance hill footpath in the UK, 256 miles from the Peak District to the Cheviot Hills, just over the Scottish border. It was an unforgettable experience (I was alone with my tent and a tin of beans, or two) with unspoiled vistas, often with just hill sheep or a stone wall the only sign of man’s interference. Now most if not all of those vistas include vast bird shredders. I feel the red mist rising…..
Beautiful country there – I want to go back. A good time to go to the Canadian Rockies is late September for the Fall color change. The scenery is spectacular. I concur with Doug Proctor. He has a good take on “elite enjoyism” – great description.
When has a greenie ever supported any type of development anywhere?
They just don’t want development. Yet are only too happy to enjoy it. Long time since I saw a greenie walk to a national park.
Here’s photographic proof
http://i39.tinypic.com/2rfsu80.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/35bcnyc.jpg
For somebody who has actually been to jasper and Banff, the big horn sheep and mountain goats don’t mind the people at all. as a matter of fact, I’ve ridden the banff gondola to the top last summer, and there were herds of big horn sheep walking right up to the walkway,that was above them, and eating food the food people were feeding them. If that’s their idea of feeling threatened, then I guess I feel “threatened” very time I eat pizza, or do my favorite activity.
Greens want everyone kicked out of the wilderness — except you-know-who, of course.
At the very least it should be done by either the Canadian government or a Canadian owned company. But no, this is from and for a USA own private company.
You know, come to think of it I’ve never seen such a dearth of “friendly” little pullouts along Hwy 93 or 95 or anywhere in the National Park system, that allows visitors to park and enjoy what they pay to keep “private, for Park employees only”. There isn’t even much in the way to pee, without driving great distances to do so.
My take on it all: “Don’t stop, don’t touch, just drive right on down the highway, “we” don’t want you even in “our” parks”.
I’ve been there. Yup, the enviros complain. They always do, and the park warden types or naturalists are the worst. They go into all those places, with snowmobiles or quads, no less, that we aren’t allowed to, because they are “studying” it. Okay … not enjoying it, of course.
Much environmentalism is elitist enjoyism: we, the Illuminated, can appreciate what the unwashed cannot. Like dismissing the tourists who view works of art at the Louvre: only the educated really deserve to view such things.
The Parkway is a narrow strip of land cutting through the park. Get 6 km along the busiest of hiking trails and you see virtually no one, get 10 km along and you are guaranteed to be alone all day. Now consider the non-hiking trails. Two hundred yards of the highway, in brush, and you exist alone. The human world has ended. Cut a corner ’round a mountain spur, and you might as well be back 5,000 years. The Indians weren’t crazy enough to be there then.
There is a huge amount of “nature”. That the public can’t see a tiny piece of it, for fear of alarming sheep or goats (sheep actually like the roads, as they are warm and have grass growing beside them, and are bear-unfriendly. Goats are definitely spooked by people, but the roads already have driven them away.), is a snobbish demand by those who consider themselves our betters.
Stewards of the earth: except in their own backyards, where they grow non-native flowers, cut their grass with lawnmowers, and drive to work, the supermarket and the cinema. In the Foothills they decry the oil and gas business because it threatens the 5% of the native grasses that still exist, leaving out the fact that their ranching has destroyed the other 95% of the native grasses on the lands that they want protected.
Develop a portion, and leave the rest. Gee, isn’t that what is already being done?