I know the Banff/Calgary/Alberta population isn't huge on ns, but this is a big loss for the Canadian ski industry and the snow industry in general. We've hosted a lot of big names at our resort through recent years including Holy Bowly, Level 1 shoots, Travelling Circus, tons of big mountain riders and even lots of celebrities. So if you like skiing or snowboarding, this shit affects you.
gonna try to keep this short and concise but there is a lot to it.
background info/sparknotes: Sunshine Village has been a resort in Banff national park for over 90 years. Last summer, Parks Canada came to the owners with an absurd list of demands that are as costly to the owners as possible and is extremely disruptive to the natural environment compared to sunshine's counter solutions. Today, we just found out that Parks Canada ignored the open discussion forum with thousands negative responses from people all over Canada, and are taking the "we'll do as we please because we are a government organization" route.
notes
- There are 3 large resorts in Banff. Sunshine is the only one under attack, because the owner has beef with politicians
-Sunshine is a gondola accessed resort. From the highway, you drive up 7km, park, then there is a 7km gondola to reach the village/lifts
-Land in Canadian national parks is leased to renters by the crown (gov). Nobody owns land in a national park here
-I DO NOT have exact numbers. I am pulling rough numbers from memory, as the Parks Canada/Sunshine discussion site with all the legitimate facts is no longer live. However I have a great memory, so they should be in the ballpark.
The first issue:
Parking on the access road. Sunshine has a small parking area for the overall resort capacity, and has allowed satellite parking on the 7km access road for decades with shuttle service. This issue has a bit of a long story, to keep it short, the ruling is that rather than sunshine's proposed parkade of 2-300 spots, where the staff lot is currently located, and would not obstruct the healy pass wildlife corridor is a NO GO. Instead sunshine will be forced to build a 500 spot parkade where the current public lot is located. Costing 50-75 million and completely blocking wildlife from passing through the open area, frequented by nearly every animal in the park.
Issue number two:
They are taking acreage away sunshine's leasehold of 91 years. This is not random, treed, sidecountry area. These are cut runs with groomer access. That should be enough said. These bullies just want to come in and take away runs that have been around for ever. Sunshine did not ask to expand, they were fighting to simply keep what they had.
Issue 3 (big one):
To decrease wait times and congestion at the base area, Sunshine is in need of a people mover lift to accompany the current gondola (2800 people/hr). Sunshine wanted a tram that runs from the base area to Goat's Eye (a different mountain on the resort than where the current gondola leads). This tram would require 2 lift towers, requiring removal of 300 something trees, 3-4 of which are endangered whitebark pines. (big deal around here, roughly $13,000 fine for cutting a sapling)
Parks Canada's counter to the tram is a new gondola that runs parallel with the current gondola. This solution requires the removal of over 5000 trees, including 3-400 endangered whitebark pines, and costing hundreds of thousands more than a tram.
Issue 4 (THE BIGGEST ONE if you care about the future of skiing)
To abide by Parks Canada's guidelines, Sunshine was forced to sign a mandatory lease agreement that requires the entire leasehold to be handed over to the crown (government) after 42 years, for $1. Yep, the family owned business will hand over their ~130 year old resort for ONE FUCKING DOLLAR when the lease is up. No matter how much has gone into it or how much the company has made for Parks. Basically stating that regardless, the ski industry in the Canadian Rockies has an expiry date.
As a Banff local and Sunshine employee, I'm blown away by this and truly disheartened for our government's disregard for the ski industry, as well as the tourism industry in our national parks (the only fucking profitable industry that exists in national parks).
If you give a shit just make as much noise as you can.
I don't even know if I'll be skiing in 42 years but this industry is my life right now and this is just absolutely fucked.
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