“We don’t find it to be a particularly inspiring site. The view is spectacular … but it’s really not an appealing environment.”
Michael Hannan, President of Brewster Transportation, quoted in the Edmonton Journal, February 2, 2011
A possible translation: No one can make money off this site at the moment, but we've come up with a wonderful way to do it. We don't like rock and ice, sun and wind. We prefer glass and steel.
Or, perhaps, the people behind this project haven't been there when the mountains make their magic.
"You'll have stunning views of the Athabasca Glacier..."
Michael Hannan, President of Brewster Transportation, quoted in the Edmonton Journal, February 2, 2011
Actually, you won't. In the view south from the viewpoint, you would have to know exactly where to look (see arrow pointing to tiny red rectangle) to detect the waning terminus of the Athabasca Glacier. Within a year or five, if glacial retreat continues, that sliver of terminus will have receded from the view entirely. If the president of Brewster Transportation cannot discern that the glacier most prominent in the view from the site of his company's proposed structure is not the one traversed by his Ice Explorer fleet, one has to ask: Has he been to the Tangle Ridge viewpoint, and what other aspects of this project is he misrepresenting?
“We wanted to come up with a new experience that would speak to a broader cross-section of society that maybe weren’t as interested in the existing tour [Ice Explorer on Athabasca Glacier] or didn’t understand it, and really appeal to young Canadians and urban Canadians and get people excited about coming back to the park.”
Michael Hannan, President of Brewster Transportation, quoted in the Edmonton Journal, February 2, 2011
A possible translation: In the fiscal year 2009/10, 1,868,797 people visited Jasper National Park, a decrease of 9.1% from 2 years earlier (Parks Canada Agency statistics). Canadians are evidently out of touch with nature; let's urbanize another piece of it to attract them and their wallets.
The project “meets the needs of a wide range of visitors and it kind of plants the seed for someone to investigate or connect with the park a little further. It gives you the opportunity to connect as many visitors as possible with the park’s stories, whether they’re about aboriginal people that used the area, climate change, sensitive species, overall park ecology and early history of transportation.”
Shawn Cardiff, Jasper National Park land use planner, quoted in the Edmonton Journal, February 2, 2011
A possible translation: Visitors will connect with and have the opportunity to further contribute to climate change by taking additional shuttle trips between the Columbia Icefield Centre and the viewpoint [as opposed to stopping at the viewpoint in their own vehicles on the way by]. They will do this in sight [almost] of a glacier that as recently as a century ago would have been prominent in the view to the south of the viewpoint. [The Athabasca Glacier has receded 1.8 km in 170 years, and has decreased in area over the same interval by 30 percent, while down-wasting more than 50 percent.] We are not sure how much longer Brewster Transportation will be able to run their Ice Explorer operation on that glacier, so we need to provide them with another potential revenue stream nearby while completely dodging the bullet on climate change. Brewster Transportation's Columbia Icefield operations revenue is down about 50 percent over the last 12 years. We will bump the local sensitive species and the overall park ecology off the cliff edge to accommodate that concern.
Athabasca Glacier, May 4, 2011: The red rectangle frames the diagonal line of an ice road ploughed on the glacier surface to facilitate the Ice Explorer operation when the local condition is still very much winter. Hmmm.... plough a receding glacier to permit the operation of large diesel-powered vehicles to..... It seems that the proponent may already offer a local "connection" to the "story" of climate change.
