In this episode, we look at the discovery of Whirling Disease in the greater Bow River watershed. We explore connections between the Franklin Expedition and our local glaciers. I examine the changing Banff Experience and we look at other news.
Whirling Disease
Last week we talked about the discovery of whirling disease in Johnson Lake in Banff National Park. This was the first discovery of this devastating parasitic disease in the country and resulted in a huge flurry of research to see if it had spread beyond this tiny mountain lake to the larger Bow River watershed. Unfortunately, it has shown that the answer is YES. That’s all we know at this point. We know it IS in the Bow River downstream of where the Cascade River meets the Bow. If we are lucky, this may be the extent, but now the researchers begin to fan out and sample all of the connected watersheds. Is it in the Red Deer River…the Oldman?
If you missed last week’s episode, whirling disease affects two different animals, the trout that are a key economic and ecological species, but also a tiny bottom-dwelling worm. First, it infests the worm, which produces spores that then infect the trout. The parasite chomps away on the cartilage of the fish which means that younger fish, which have a higher ratio of cartilage to bone are much more seriously affected. Eventually, their spine may begin to bend and their tail to turn black. In the latter stages of the disease, they may begin to swim in tight circles, which gives the disease its descriptive name.
This changes everything within the Bow River watershed, and perhaps, Alberta’s entire aquatic ecosystem. Whirling disease spreads far too easily. Over the past two weeks, I’ve hiked in the Bow, Athabasca, Kicking Horse, Vermillion, Kananaskis and Spray River watersheds. .. and all it takes to spread the disease is a dirty pair of boots…and the worst part is, that someone could store a pair of boots in the closet for years, finally dust them off…and the spores may STILL be just as active, patiently waiting to spread whirling disease to a new water source.
Even if I, or any of the myriad to boot wearers that wander across Alberta, from hunters to anglers to hikers to flip-flops do everything right, a single bird could land on an infected pond, come into contact with infected worms or spores, and then move on to another pond bringing the parasite with it.
Maybe a family comes to the Bow River for a picnic and paddle in the inflatable boat. If the paddles retain a little mud from the bottom as they pushed away from the shoreline, that next family trip to Edmonton can spread the disease to the North Saskatchewan.
I know! I’m being paranoid! Except that within a short time of arriving in Montana, the entirety of their trout-bearing waters were infected. Here in the Canadian Rockies, a century of stocking of non-native trout puts the bull and cutthroat trout populations in a precarious position. It was bad enough for these sensitive native trout to compete with aggressive introduced species, but this is something altogether new!
Both bull and cutthroat trout are currently listed as at risk. This introduction of a new parasite for which they may not have any immunity may be devastating.
In Montana, brown trout replaced many of the rainbow trout in the streams. It appears that brown trout may be the original European host as they seem to survive the onslaught much better than other trout species.
Fingers crossed. While I’m not an angler, I realize the economic impact of sportfishing in the province and I work with many a local fishing guide. This is really a sad story and there is nothing we can do to raise the mood…or is there!
Franklin’s Ship
How about a great discovery 160+ years in the making?
In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin departed England in command of two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror.
Franklin was tasked with finding the fabled Northwest Passage…and it was not his first visit to the Arctic, but his third. It was the 19th attempt by the British Navy to traverse the passage. It was seen as a potential trade route to the Orient that could cut months off the current route around Cape Horne. Whoever could find the way through would be guaranteed fame and fortune.
Franklin’s expedition did not find success in the cold arctic waters, but only death and mystery. After becoming hopelessly trapped in ice near King William Island, the crew gradually had to abandon both ships and fend for themselves. On June 11, 1847, Franklin died and his grave has never been discovered.
The two ships were the most advanced ever sent to the Arctic. Along with heavy reinforced beams and steel plating to harden the ships against the punishing ice, they each had a steam engine, made from a converted locomotive that would drive a single propeller and enable them to make some 7.4 km/hour without wind. Provisions included some three years supply of tinned goods, some of which were later found to be sealed with poor quality lead solder. This had disastrous implications for the crew.
Numerous graves have been discovered over the years and they yielded two terrible discoveries. Most of the crew died of lead poisoning. Other skeletons showed signs of cannibalism. As future historians retraced the steps of the expedition they slowly began to piece together more and more of the story of the demise of the crew. Unfortunately, until recently, the location of the two ships had evaded discovery.
I recently had the pleasure to hear a presentation by Dr. Brian Luckman, a glaciologist in this area. When we look at the history of the glaciers in the Rockies and compare their history with the timing of the Franklin Expedition, it turns out that they had incredibly poor timing. 1845 represented the largest extent of our mountain glaciers in the past 10,000 years. It was the height of the Little Ice Age and, while Franklin could not have known this, he could not have picked a worse time to visit Canada’s Arctic. The television show Nova did a program called Buried in Ice – The Franklin Expedition. And on it they interview a Polar Scientist by the name of Roy Koerner with the Geological Survey of Canada. Koerner looked at ice cores from the time that Franklin was trapped and they showed the ice did not melt for 5 years straight. The only other time that he had seen a similar ice core was from the 1970s. Coincidentally, Dr Luckman’s research into the Angel Glacier in Jasper national park also shows a dramatic period of growth during the 1970s, once again matching the conditions in the arctic. It’s always fascinating with local natural history can connect with national cultural stories.
The discovery of the Terror is one of the greatest Arctic discoveries in recent memory. Since the ship was found at the end of the field season, further research will need to wait until next year for a more in-depth analysis. Preliminary investigations show the ship appears to be fully intact. It also appears that all the hatches remained sealed so there is a good chance that real treasures could be discovered on the wreck. By treasure, I don’t me gold, but hopefully…words. In the cold water, it is conceivable that journals and medical records may still be intact in the cold arctic waters. This could shed additional details on the fate of the expedition. Personally, I can’t wait to see what we learn from this wreck.
Story 3 – The Banff Experience
A parliamentary panel recently visited Banff to hear from stakeholders regarding the increase in numbers in the park and the changes in the character of tourism in the mountain parks.
As a long time local and tourism professional, I am out in the field all the time. I have seen the change in focus over the years as Parks Canada has moved further and further from the goals of ecological integrity towards a focus on more people, more events, more development and more losses to the visitor experience.
I know what you’re thinking! I make my living from tourists so it’s a little disingenuous for me to say we should be cutting back. You’re right! I make my living working with individuals, small groups and even corporate groups numbering in the hundreds. At the same time, my goal is also to protect the integrity of my guest’s experience, no matter which sector of the tourism market they represent. I don’t care who you are, when it takes two and a half hours to drive 3 kilometres between the village of Lake Louise and the actual lake, nobody is having a positive mountain experience. Routinely the Trans Canada Exit to Lake Louise has to be completely closed when the number of vehicles trying to visit the lake completely overruns the capacity for the roads to accommodate. I’ve also spent several hours trying to get down the Sulphur Mountain Road from the gondola. So bad is the traffic on this hill that the town of Banff has actually proposed a gondola to get to the gondola!
Parks approved a more than 20 million dollar redevelopment on Sulphur Mountain without ever asking if the town infrastructure was able to accommodate increased vehicle traffic.
Every week it seems that the newspaper is full of new proposals for ski hill expansions, long backcountry paved bike paths, via ferratas, and new gondolas. None of these things contribute to what is and has always been job one for Parks Canada – preserving intact ecosystems unimpaired for future generations. By all measures, ecological integrity is being sacrificed for the purpose of tourism dollars.
Caribou numbers are plummeting in the Rockies. The Bow Valley has been called a wildlife ghetto, by Paul Pacquette, the principal scientist of the famed Bow Valley Study which outlined ways that Banff could move towards increased sustainability and improve wildlife habitats. For around 10 years Parks Canada seemed to be moving forward on many of the recommendations put forward in the study, but it didn’t last.
Over the past decade we began to see events that have nothing to do with the park’s goals being embraced – events like dragon boat racing, road bike and marathon running races, etc. Not only do events like these NOT fall within the Parks Canada mandate, they make it hard for visitors that ARE here to experience the natural landscapes for with the park was originally set aside.
There may be parks that could use the increased profile that events like this can bring to an area – but not Banff and Jasper. In most cases, these events are a distraction from the reason the park is there.
The area around Lake Louise has the highest concentration of breeding female grizzlies in the central Rockies, but the current onslaught of visitors cannot in any way benefit these bears.
Bigger parking lots are NOT the answer. We need to begin looking at realistic limitations on the maximum numbers of visitors to places like Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and Sulphur Mountain. The roads and infrastructure have a maximum carrying capacity. There needs to be some sort of quota system to ensure that most, but not necessarily all potential visitors can visit these sights. Quotas and prebooking systems are used successfully in parks all over the world. Banff should be no exception. It may only be for a few months each summer where we need to implement such restrictions but it can’t be put off any longer.
Parks should immediately reverse their decision to waive park fees for 2017 one hundred and fiftieth birthday of Canada. The park simply can’t absorb another half million or more visitors.
Without making some changes we are at imminent risk of loving this place to death. We also run the risk of managements push for more and more visitors to begin backfiring horribly as more and more travellers flood forums like Trip Advisor with negative opinions of their Rocky Mountain Park experience.
Tourism is a very fickle industry. it lives and dies based on reputation and continued positive experiences. There are many cases around the world where once vibrant tourism markets began to suffer when the experience stopped matching the hype.
Too much focus on the frontcountry high-intensity experience is killing Banff and Jasper National Parks. We need to go back to basics and re-examine what these parks mean to us all. This governmental panel really needs to listen carefully. More importantly, they need to read the national parks act and their own governing documents. Decisions being made over the past few years to bring in more and more people do not in any way enhance visitor experiences, improve ecological integrity or help build Banff’s brand as an international destination.
The cost of tourism
On a similar bent, the increased amount of tourism traffic causes a huge wear and tear on infrastructure like roads, sewage treatment and other park facilities -all of the costs borne by the municipalities. As numbers continue to increase so do the ballooning costs that towns like Banff and Jasper need to shoulder.
When Alberta calculates the infrastructure dollars that it provides municipalities, it only factors in resident population and completely ignores Jasper’s 2 million and Banff’s 4 million-plus annual visitors. While the bulk of tourists are here for just a few months, the wear and tear on the infrastructure do not go away when they depart. The only tool that these towns have to increase revenues to cover these costs is the increase in property taxes.
Other jurisdictions in Canada and the U.S. offer supplemental funds for municipalities that have to provide tourism infrastructure
In British Columbia, the Resort Municipality Initiative provides supplementary funding to 14 tourism based municipalities. It helps fund projects that increase tourism potential, add new amenities or improve the tourism experience. For many of these communities, these supplemental dollars can amount to somewhere between 1 and 2 million dollars.
British Columbia realizes that tourism is a key economic driver and employs some 125,000 people and brings in 13.5 billion dollars a year. This program also recognizes the unique challenges that small tourism focussed communities face in trying to provide infrastructure for a transient population of tourists that may represent many times the resident population.
The goal of this program is to undertake projects that will encourage longer and more frequent visits. It might include the construction of new trails, boat launches, new festivals and events.
Virtually all of the major tourist towns in British Columbia participate including Fernie, Whistler, Sun Peaks and nearby Golden.
It’s about time that the province of Alberta recognizes the important contribution towns like Banff, Canmore, and Jasper make to the federal and provincial coffers.
Swimming for new turf
Until I read a recent article posted by CBC News, I was unaware that Vancouver Island was free of grizzly bears. They are occasionally sighted, but the signtings are few and far between.
However a conservation officer from Port McNeill spotted two grizzlies swimming from island to island just five km off the shores of Vancouver Island. Grizzlies are well known for their swimming ability and can swim for very long distances. Remember, the most aquatic bear of them all, the polar bear, evolved from grizzly bears and simply took their swimming ability to an entirely new level.
These bears are presunmed to have swam all the way from the mainland to the island. There may be many reasons that the bears may have made the journey. It may be related to declining salmon numbers on the mainland. Salmon are very susceptible to changes in ocean temperatures and over the long term we may see more drops in numbers if ocean temperatures continue to increase.
They may be responding to increased logging on the mainland or to the increased access that logging roads provide to once pristine wilderness areas.
Whenever we see a marked change in behaviour of animals like grizzly bears – especially when they begin to migrate to new territories. This may just be an isolated exploration by these bears or it may be the start of a trend. Only time will tell but we do need to pay attention to events like this one.
Don’t use expired bear spray
A story out of the Kootenays brings up a very important safety message when it comes to bears and bear spray. A woman in Cooper Creek, B.C. was walking her dog with her two children when a grizzly sow protecting her cubs bluff charged them when both groups suddenly encountered each other. The woman pulled her expired bear spray, released the safety and let the bear have it – or at least that was the plan. When she pressed the trigger, all she got was a tiny sputter that travelled barely a metre. Luckily the bear did exactly what it should and left the area – and now it’s being relocated for no legitimate reason.
Bear spray is clearly labeled with its expiry date. It relies on propellants to send the spray some 3-4 metres forward in a thick cloud towards the bear. Properly used, bear spray is more effective than firearms simply because the wide cloud doesn’t require any real aim, it just engulfs the entire bear. It is highly effective when used correctly.
In this situation, the woman was well aware that her spray was expired yet she travelled into bear country with small children and bet their lives on a cannister that was expired. You must dispose of your cannisters when the date on the bottom of the can expires. They don’t cost a lot of money and it’s the cheapest insurance you’ll ever find for so little investment.
Why not take your expired cannisters out to a remote location and practice deploying them. Obviously you’ll want to make sure it’s an area where the lingering pepper spary is not going to impact someone else that may wander into your cloud after you’ve departed. This stuff is powerful.
Bear spray is a must have in bear country. It must be on your person and not in your pack or on your bike. It needs to be within its useable dates and you need to practice so that when you need it you don’t need to give it a second thought. You’ll just automatically draw the cannister, pop the safety off and be ready to deploy it. It really should be muscle memory and not require you to futz around to figure out how to work the darn thing.
Just like the fire extinguishers in your home need to be regularly serviced, bear spray needs periodic replacement. Don’t put your trust in an expired canister. Things may not turn out as well for you as they did in this case.