The location of Brewster Transportation's proposed "Glacier Discovery Walk" is an existing viewpoint on the west shoulder of the Icefields Parkway, approximately 6.5 km north of the Columbia Icefield Centre, in Jasper National Park, Alberta. The viewpoint goes by any of three names: Sunwapta Canyon viewpoint, Mt. Kitchener viewpoint, or (as the proponent prefers) Tangle Ridge viewpoint. The present viewpoint consists of a paved parking area, larger at the north end, where there is a stone wall at the canyon edge. Farther south, the paved area narrows, offering three small, fenced overlooks into the canyon - all of this spread along about 350 m of road edge.
The viewpoint is at approximately 1950 m elevation. The Icefields Parkway descends steeply to the south for 2.5 km to level out about 4 km north of the Columbia Icefield Centre, at an elevation of approximately 1860 m. To the north the Icefields Parkway drops very steeply over approximately 5.5 km to the Sunwapta River flats, at an elevation of 1600 m. After Bow Summit and Sunwapta Pass, the viewpoint occupies the third-highest crest on the Icefields Parkway.
The Sunwapta River, just a few kilometres from its glacial sources, courses through the debris of two landslides in the valley immediately beneath the viewpoint, with the resulting canyon depth ranging between about 100 m to the south, to over 200 m to the north. As canyons go, in the Rockies and elsewhere, it's not an immediate postcard moment, but the cleft that the river hews through the tremendous constriction created by the landslides from Mt. Kitchener, to the west, and the precipitous flank of Wilcox Peak, to the east, creates a setting not duplicated elsewhere at roadside in the Canadian Rockies. This is a place where, if a paved pull-off had not been provided in the highway design, motorists and cyclists of every stripe would be stopping anyway to hop the guardrail and gawk.
Gawkers usually do so in full blast of the very breath of the Columbia Icefield, a raking catabatic wind that typically takes 10° Celsius off the local ambient temperature. It's a place where you bundle up in order to spend time taking in the view. A glassed-in viewpoint will get you "closer" to the environment by protecting you from that, of course.
Despite the proponent's opinion, vistas from the present viewpoint can be stellar and inspiring. Common features include cloud plumes from the adjacent high peaks of the Columbia Icefield - Athabasca, Andromeda, Snow Dome, Kitchener, and the Stutfield Peaks – which create a rapidly changing lightscape. Sleet, snow, and windborne ice pellets are often an integral part of the view. However, curiously – given the name of the proposed structure – grand views of glaciers are not elements of the scene. Most prominent is the "Little A Glacier" on Mt. Athabasca, 10 km to the south. The margin of the Columbia Icefield is visible as ice cliffs atop Mt. Kitchener and the Stutfield Peaks.
If the proponent was really interested in providing visitors with a "glacier discovery walk" in the Columbia Icefield area, it would direct them to the Forefield trail that begins near the Columbia Icefield Centre. That trail is a path beaten into the glacial rubble; windswept, and occasionally washed out by surging streams. It provides, in other words, an authentic experience of a peri-glacial environment. More importantly to this discussion, it does so free of any additional charge to the visitor, and with a possible net reduction in environmental impacts over those that will result from the proposal currently being entertained. Imagine: directing people to discover nature by walking outside on an existing trail, in the full brunt of the wind, sun, sleet, hail, rain, and snow; and in a national park. Revolutionary!
With infinitely better views of glaciers to be had at half a dozen other roadside stops in the Rockies – best of all, just 6.5 km south in the environs of the Columbia Icefield Centre – visitors won't be "discovering" glaciers if Brewster Transportation builds its skywalk contraption. They will be parting with their cash for a thrill-walk over the edge of a cliff. This is 1950s-style tourism; socially, environmentally, and ethically obsolete in contemporary national parks. Brewster Transportation's clever naming of the proposed structure extends their "branding" in the area. The company operates the recently renamed Glacier Discovery Centre (a.k.a. Columbia Icefield Centre) just down the road, from where its Ice Explorer fleet – the epitome of industrial tourism – departs. That the Parks Canada Agency is entertaining this proposal, which features the proponent's obvious "footprint-broadening" strategy in the Columbia Icefield area, can be labelled many things; "responsible" not among them.
Neither the proponent or the Parks Canada Agency can state the present populations of bighorn sheep, mountain goats, and mule deer in the vicinity of Tangle Creek, nor their population trends. No longterm studies have been done. The proponent cites that: "In the last 15 years, there have been 55 reported motor vehicle collisions and 9 reported wildlife mortalities in that area." However, the proponent does not clarify "that area" as referring to the 8 km length of the Tangle Creek Hill, not to the Tangle Ridge viewpoint specifically. Part of the proponent's spin on the attempted selling of this proposal is that the viewpoint will be made safer for wildlife and for motorists. It may well be the case that the present viewpoint should be re-designed with those aims in mind, but to tag them on as the selling points for a needless, commercial construction is a blunt artifice that does not escape the scrutiny of many. Unfortunately, the Parks Canada Agency, cash-starved and saddled with aging infrastructure, and possibly worried that Brewster Transportation may abandon its lion's share of the floor space in the cavernous Columbia Icefield Centre if it does not get its way with this proposal, has eagerly taken the bait.
The Sunwapta River, just a few kilometres from its glacial sources, courses through the debris of two landslides in the valley immediately beneath the viewpoint, with the resulting canyon depth ranging between about 100 m to the south, to over 200 m to the north. As canyons go, in the Rockies and elsewhere, it's not an immediate postcard moment, but the cleft that the river hews through the tremendous constriction created by the landslides from Mt. Kitchener, to the west, and the precipitous flank of Wilcox Peak, to the east, creates a setting not duplicated elsewhere at roadside in the Canadian Rockies. This is a place where, if a paved pull-off had not been provided in the highway design, motorists and cyclists of every stripe would be stopping anyway to hop the guardrail and gawk.
Gawkers usually do so in full blast of the very breath of the Columbia Icefield, a raking catabatic wind that typically takes 10° Celsius off the local ambient temperature. It's a place where you bundle up in order to spend time taking in the view. A glassed-in viewpoint will get you "closer" to the environment by protecting you from that, of course.
Despite the proponent's opinion, vistas from the present viewpoint can be stellar and inspiring. Common features include cloud plumes from the adjacent high peaks of the Columbia Icefield - Athabasca, Andromeda, Snow Dome, Kitchener, and the Stutfield Peaks – which create a rapidly changing lightscape. Sleet, snow, and windborne ice pellets are often an integral part of the view. However, curiously – given the name of the proposed structure – grand views of glaciers are not elements of the scene. Most prominent is the "Little A Glacier" on Mt. Athabasca, 10 km to the south. The margin of the Columbia Icefield is visible as ice cliffs atop Mt. Kitchener and the Stutfield Peaks.
If the proponent was really interested in providing visitors with a "glacier discovery walk" in the Columbia Icefield area, it would direct them to the Forefield trail that begins near the Columbia Icefield Centre. That trail is a path beaten into the glacial rubble; windswept, and occasionally washed out by surging streams. It provides, in other words, an authentic experience of a peri-glacial environment. More importantly to this discussion, it does so free of any additional charge to the visitor, and with a possible net reduction in environmental impacts over those that will result from the proposal currently being entertained. Imagine: directing people to discover nature by walking outside on an existing trail, in the full brunt of the wind, sun, sleet, hail, rain, and snow; and in a national park. Revolutionary!
With infinitely better views of glaciers to be had at half a dozen other roadside stops in the Rockies – best of all, just 6.5 km south in the environs of the Columbia Icefield Centre – visitors won't be "discovering" glaciers if Brewster Transportation builds its skywalk contraption. They will be parting with their cash for a thrill-walk over the edge of a cliff. This is 1950s-style tourism; socially, environmentally, and ethically obsolete in contemporary national parks. Brewster Transportation's clever naming of the proposed structure extends their "branding" in the area. The company operates the recently renamed Glacier Discovery Centre (a.k.a. Columbia Icefield Centre) just down the road, from where its Ice Explorer fleet – the epitome of industrial tourism – departs. That the Parks Canada Agency is entertaining this proposal, which features the proponent's obvious "footprint-broadening" strategy in the Columbia Icefield area, can be labelled many things; "responsible" not among them.
Neither the proponent or the Parks Canada Agency can state the present populations of bighorn sheep, mountain goats, and mule deer in the vicinity of Tangle Creek, nor their population trends. No longterm studies have been done. The proponent cites that: "In the last 15 years, there have been 55 reported motor vehicle collisions and 9 reported wildlife mortalities in that area." However, the proponent does not clarify "that area" as referring to the 8 km length of the Tangle Creek Hill, not to the Tangle Ridge viewpoint specifically. Part of the proponent's spin on the attempted selling of this proposal is that the viewpoint will be made safer for wildlife and for motorists. It may well be the case that the present viewpoint should be re-designed with those aims in mind, but to tag them on as the selling points for a needless, commercial construction is a blunt artifice that does not escape the scrutiny of many. Unfortunately, the Parks Canada Agency, cash-starved and saddled with aging infrastructure, and possibly worried that Brewster Transportation may abandon its lion's share of the floor space in the cavernous Columbia Icefield Centre if it does not get its way with this proposal, has eagerly taken the bait.
“We don’t find it to be a particularly inspiring site. The view is spectacular … but it’s really not an appealing environment.” (Edmonton Journal, February 2, 2011)
