The Ktunaxa Nation is deeply disappointed with a B.C. Court of Appeal ruling on a challenge to the province’s approval of Jumbo Glacier Resort’s development plans, says Kathryn Teneese, Ktunaxa Nation Council Chair.

Last year the Ktunaxa argued in B.C. Supreme Court that there was not adequate consultation before the province signed a Master Development Agreement with Glacier Resorts Ltd. for the controversial Kootenay ski resort and that development in an area considered sacred by the First Nation would violate their constitutional right to freedom of religion.

That petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court and the Ktunaxa launched an appeal, which was heard in May but, on Thursday, the Court of Appeal upheld the initial ruling in favour of the provincial government.

“The decision of the minister to approve the Master Development Agreement did not violate the Ktunaxa’s freedom of religion guaranteed under section 2a of the Charter. The minister did not breach his duty to consult and accommodate,” the ruling reads.

Teneese said an official response to the decision will be released next week.

“We are working closely with our legal team to analyze this ruling and other developments to determine what our next steps may be,” she said.

The court ruling is the latest twist in the 24-year Jumbo Glacier Resort saga.

Despite strong opposition to plans for a billion dollar, 6,300-bed resort in the Purcell Mountains wilderness from local politicians, environmental groups and the Ktunaxa, the province granted Glacier Resorts an Environmental Assessment Certificate in 2004 and renewed it in 2009.

However, Environment Minister Mary Polak pulled the Environmental Assessment Certificate this summer after concluding the project had not substantially started.

That means the project would have to go back to square one with a new application for a certificate, but company spokesman Oberto Oberti said last month that Glacier’s lawyers will submit a request for a judicial review of Polak’s decision or will come up with plans for a smaller project that would be below the threshold of Environmental Assessment regulations.

Robyn Duncan, executive director of Wildsight, a major opponent of the project, said the Court of Appeal ruling is a blow as it removes one of the ways the project could have been stopped.

“The big take-away is that the Master Development Agreement remains intact. They still can’t develop anything without an Environmental Certificate or without reducing the scale of the project and having that approved, but, nonetheless, it remains intact,” she said.

Meanwhile, both sides are awaiting another court ruling.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has reserved her decision on an application by the West Kootenay EcoSociety to dissolve Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality.

The municipality, which has no residents or structures within its boundaries, was formed to administer the development agreement.

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Snow is flying in the Jumbo Valley, covering both the rapidly constructed foundations of a ski lift and day lodge and the campsite where, throughout the summer, opponents have monitored activities at the site of a proposed all-season ski resort centred around four glaciers in the heart of the Kootenays.

For now, it’s a waiting game — no surprise to the many players on both sides of the controversial proposal who have been involved throughout the 24-year saga.

Glacier Resorts Ltd. is hoping the foundations, built in October, will prove to the provincial Environmental Assessment Office that significant progress has been made on construction of the billion-dollar proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort.

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In 2004 the company was granted an environmental assessment certificate with 195 conditions. The certificate was renewed in 2009 and, under legislation, cannot be renewed again. For the certificate to become permanent, Glacier Resorts must show that the project was “substantially started” by Oct. 12.

Three days before that deadline, the Environmental Assessment Office wrote to Glacier Resorts saying the company was not in compliance with three pre-construction conditions, primarily relating to water quality and fish habitat monitoring. However, the warning about non-compliance does not have any direct bearing on the decision about whether the project has made significant progress, said an Environment Ministry spokesman.

The term “substantially started” is not defined in legislation. The Environmental Assessment Office will make a recommendation to Environment Minister Mary Polak, who will make the final decision.

“There is no set timeframe in which the minister must make the determination about whether a project was substantially started by the deadline,” said the ministry spokesman.

Until a decision is made, it is not only the weather that has put a stop to construction. The company has been warned not to continue work until a decision is made, although restoration work on the non-compliance problems is allowed.

Mountain Guide Critical of Construction 'Rush Job'

A 10-centimetre snowfall in the Jumbo Valley means the “concrete slab” foundations are “out of sight, but not out of mind,” said retired mountain guide Arnor Larson, a tireless opponent of the resort proposal.

Larson has submitted a document and photos to the Environmental Assessment Office raising questions about the “unusual” quality of the foundation work on the day lodge and ski lift.

“Rush jobs often mean cutting corners, but it was still a surprise that, throughout the area covered by the forms, the ground was never properly leveled and compacted, nor was the necessary topping layer of fine aggregate material ever installed, leveled or compacted,” he wrote.

“Believing in foundations that have no foundation is like something out of Alice In Wonderland.”

Foundation for Day Lodge Adjacent to 'Avalanche Meadow'

Larson, armed with pages of photos and documentation, also has serious concerns with the location of the day lodge.

“As a professional mountain climbing guide since 1970, I stood there and had a thought that went like this — in the winter, when avalanche conditions are ripe, I would find the risk too high to set up my tent here for even one single night. Yet they are going to erect a permanent building here,” he said.

“Who the heck signed the paper saying this was a safe place to build?”

Larson pointed out in his submission that the site of the day lodge has changed from the original plans and the lodge doors at the new site would open on to “the aptly named Avalanche Meadow.” It is an area where, in 2009, a massive avalanche tore down a ski run.

The resort’s Master Plan calls for avalanche control measures, such as helicopter bombing potential avalanche sites, but critics such as renowned Canadian mountaineer and photographer Pat Morrow, who lives in the East Kootenays, does not believe the area can be made safe.

“As you get further and further into the proposed townsite, you are getting further and further into avalanche territory,” he said.

“No other resorts have base areas that are threatened as much as this.”

NDP Leader John Horgan Says Day Lodge in Class 4 Avalanche Zone

Growing concerns about building a day lodge adjacent to an avalanche path — even though proponent Oberto Oberti has said the buildings will be just outside the high-risk area — were taken up this week in Question Period by NDP leader John Horgan.

Jumbo Glacier Resort specifically committed to building residential and commercial structures outside avalanche zones, Horgan said.

“Yet the Jumbo Glacier Resort has put the only foundation that they’ve been able to pour to this point in time, their day lodge, right in a Class 4 avalanche zone,” he said.

“For the minister’s edification, a Class 4 avalanche zone is really, really bad. In fact, it says ‘a Class 4 could destroy a railway car, large truck, several buildings and forests up to four hectares.’ It’s a big deal.”

However Polak, who recently visited the area and met with the Ktunaxa First Nation, rejected calls from Horgan for her to immediately withdraw the permit.

“It is very important that we allow the process to unfold, that we allow First Nations to respond appropriately, providing us with that information,” she said.

Robyn Duncan of Wildsight, a non-profit group that has led much of the opposition to the proposal, said Wildsight has been working with Ecojustice to make last-minute submissions to the Environmental Assessment Office and, if the Jumbo Resort project gets the go-ahead or, if there is an attempt to again extend the certificate, a legal challenge might be considered.

The proposal is already being challenged by the Ktuxana First Nation, which is appealing a B.C Supreme Court decision that the consultation was reasonable and the resort would not substantially interfere with Ktunaxa spiritual beliefs and practices. The area in which the resort is planned is known to the Ktunaxa as Qat’muk, the place where the Grizzly Bear Spirit was born, goes to heal itself and returns to the spirit world.

The West Kootenay EcoSociety is also challenging the incorporation of the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality, a municipality with no residents which is being supported with taxpayer dollars.

Others who have taken part in the annual protest and monitoring camps are watching carefully and are ready to spring into action again if it proves necessary.

“I have been working to keep Jumbo Wild for over 15 years,” said KL Kivi, who spent much of her summer at the monitoring camp.

“This is the largest unroaded wilderness in southern B.C. and our lives are inextricably linked to the health of this place. It would fracture the spine of an incredibly important ecological region,” she said.

Tommaso Oberti, vice president of Pheidias Project Management, who has acted as spokesman for previous stories, did not respond to questions.

However, a letter written by Oberto Oberti, on behalf of Glacier Resorts, to Jumbo Municipality Mayor Gregory Deck, underlines his confidence that the project will go ahead.

“In the most unlikely event that physical and legal disruptions do not permit the start of construction, the government will have an obligation to extend or remove the deadline, as in any construction case of force majeure,” he wrote in February.

“I am certain that, in this case, Glacier will seek legal advice and legal routes to ensure that its rights are not compromised.”

Photo: Lucas Jmief, Lucasimagephoto.ca

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Grizzly bears in the Central Purcell Mountains are more vulnerable than shown in 15-year-old research being used by proponents of Jumbo Glacier Resort and, if the resort is built, it could threaten grizzly populations through southern B.C and into the U.S, says one of Canada’s leading grizzly bear experts.

Michael Proctor, who has studied grizzly bears in the Purcell and Selkirk mountain ranges in southeastern B.C. for almost 20 years and whose work is regularly published in scientific journals, recently completed two ecological analyses of the Purcell grizzly population and found, based on data-driven population surveys, that bear populations are about 50 per cent smaller than previous estimates.

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In 1999, government scientists estimated the area to be at 93 per cent of carrying capacity for grizzlies, but Proctor’s research, completed more than a decade later, found grizzly capacity to be at 54 per cent. The capacity is the population an environment can sustain.

Human Encroachment Likely Cause of Drop in Grizzly Population

Using DNA analysis from hair snagging, Proctor found the Purcell grizzly populations are depressed, bringing them “close to or below the threatened population threshold.” The reason for the lower than expected numbers is most probably more roads into the backcountry and human-caused mortality associated with the activity that roads bring.

Work needs to be done on helping the population recover before efforts to mitigate the negative effects of the proposed resort come into play, he said,

“To improve the status of the Purcell grizzly it will likely be necessary to improve the balance of human use and wildlife habitat needs. The Jumbo Glacier Resort would challenge our ability to accomplish that goal,” Proctor said in a 2010 letter to the provincial government.

Purcell/Selkirk Grizzlies Act as Anchor Population

An even more important issue, Proctor said in an interview, is that the proposed resort will likely fragment the approximately 600-strong Purcell/Selkirk grizzly population and compromise its ability to act as a core anchor for beleaguered and already-fragmented smaller units to the south. Keeping that population intact is probably essential to maintaining international grizzly bear populations extending south into the U.S.

“Those small, fragmented populations just to the south are too small to survive long-term without the larger Purcell/Selkirk regional core population to act as a long-term source of immigrants,” Proctor said.

It is an argument that has been emphasized by Wildsight, a non-profit fighting approval of the proposed resort.

“This is the last stop. There’s small bits of populations to the south and in the U.S and, if we cut them off they are hooped,” said Wildsight spokesperson Robyn Duncan.

Although Glacier Resorts spokespeople say there are few grizzlies in the area that would be used for year-round glacier skiing, there are numerous anecdotes about resort proponents ignoring grizzlies that appear almost in front of them.

Bob Campsall, a long-time Jumbo Creek Conservation Society board member, recalls one of the first meetings about the planned resort.

“I asked about grizzly bears and they said they had studied the grizzly bear population and there were not enough to be concerned about. I had hiked up there the previous weekend and saw four grizzly bears,” he said.

Most Up-to-Date Grizzly Research Not Considered by B.C. Government

Proctor said that, as Jumbo is in the central spine of the Purcell Range, it is in the area where the bears are generally going to travel.

“Ski areas are not generally bad for grizzly bears; it’s the location of this one,” he said.

However, Proctor’s latest research appears to have been ignored by the provincial government. The Environmental Assessment Office is currently considering whether the environmental assessment certificate, first granted in 2004 and renewed in 2009, should be made permanent.

“They haven’t incorporated the new information I have given them,” Proctor said.

“They said the research was too late.”

That is a disappointment, according to Proctor, who has a reputation as an independent research scientist, whose only agenda is science.

“It is a shame not to use the latest science,” he said.

Gerry Wilkie, a director of the Regional District of East Kootenay, is angry that Proctor’s research is not being taken into account and believes it illustrates how poorly the Jumbo decision is being handled by the government.

“It’s a debacle,” he said, describing the project as a white elephant.

“The fact that Mike Proctor’s work on population dynamics and fragmentation of habitat of the southern interior grizzly was disregarded is of critical importance.”

The Environmental Assessment Office determined that the 1999 report, conducted for Glacier Resorts by Axys Environmental Consulting (PDF), satisfied the requirement for a pre-construction inventory of grizzly bears in the study area, said an Environment Ministry spokesman.

The project is in compliance with five conditions related to grizzly bears, but future work is required, the spokesman said.

 “Jumbo Glacier Resorts is currently developing plans for the next steps in monitoring for potential impacts of the project on the grizzly bear population.”

Proctor is not the only one to conclude the resort would be bad news for grizzlies

Alton Harestad, former co-chair of the provincial Grizzly Bear Scientific Advisory Committee, concluded the development would adversely affect the grizzly population in the South Purcells.

“The size and nature of the development will result, eventually, in the loss of bears locally and will diminish the viability of the regional population of grizzly bears,” Harestad wrote in a report.

“There are no examples in North America where grizzly bears have coexisted successfully with large human development over the long term.”

The Jumbo Glacier Resort Master Plan, approved by the province, relies heavily on mitigation efforts, ranging from Bear Smart programs to establishing partnerships with government and local forest tenure holders to improve grizzly habitat in and around the almost 6,000 hectares of controlled recreation area – Crown land that the company will lease from the province.

Ktunaxa Spirituality Not Up For Grabs

However, members of the Ktunaxa Nation, like other critics, say categorically that mitigation is not possible.

The Ktunaxa, who are appealing a B.C. Supreme Court decision turning down an application for a judicial review of the province’s approval of the resort, know the area as Qat’muk, the place where the Grizzly Bear Spirit was born, goes to heal itself and returns to the spirit world.

The heart of the nation’s spirituality is not up for grabs, says Kathryn Teneese, chair of the Ktunaxa Nation Council.

It is easy to understand why the Jumbo Valley is so special in First Nations culture, Duncan said.

“It’s where grizzly bear science and spirituality come together. It’s not a coincidence that the Ktunaxa knew from living on the land that this is a core area — that this is an area we don’t touch,” she said.

Photo: Heather & Mike via Flickr

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The rough track at the foot of West Farnham Glacier, carved by a Glacier Resorts bulldozer in 2008, comes to an abrupt end as the already rough terrain becomes impassable.

Huge boulders block the path, where there is an early-fall dusting of snow and, ahead, the cliffs are festooned with precariously hanging icicles.

“We call it the road to nowhere,” said professional mountain climbing guide Arnor Larson, who, since 1970, has taken visitors into the remote Farnham area of the Purcell Range — 60 kilometres from Invermere along a lumpy, slippery one-track road.

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Stretching above the track is the money card — blindingly bright snow, broken by icy blue patches, where the prospect of all-season glacier skiing has fuelled a 24-year debate.

Glacier Resorts Ltd. plans to build a billion-dollar ski resort, with hotels, lodges, condominiums and shops, in the adjacent Jumbo Valley. Lifts and gondolas would take visitors from the village to ski on Farnham, Jumbo and Commander Glaciers.

But the most pressing question is how long the glaciers will be around.

While the Jumbo Glacier Resort Master Plan predicts the glaciers will survive or even grow as climate change will mean additional snow at high altitudes, climate scientists say glaciers in the Purcell Mountains will have disappeared by the turn of the century.

Larson, who has had a front-row seat to the glacier melt for more than four decades, points to scraped rocks below the glacier toe, showing how Farnham has receded in the time he has been guiding. Then he glances up at the summer snow and points to semi-concealed crevasses.

Professional mountain climbing guide Arnor Larson. Photo: Pat Morrow.

“I wouldn’t be too keen as a guide to take anyone there in the summer for skiing,” he said.

Larson, who has collected old photos of the glaciers, compares a 1913 photo of Commander Glacier to a 2008 photo, showing massive ice reduction. Over recent years, the process has sped up and Commander has shrunk considerably further since 2008, he said.

Commander Glacier in 1913.

Commander Glacier in 2008.

The melting is further accelerated by machines cutting ice roads on the glaciers or “mining” snow from the upper part of the glacier to build ski runs, he said.

Large machinery on Farnham Glacier. Photo: Arnor Larson.

Tommaso Oberti, vice-president of Pheidias Project Management Corp., the company spearheading the resort design, said the Master Plan is based on information from Michael Maxwell, a geophysicist with global consulting firm Golder Associates.

Maxwell, an honorary research associate at the University of British Columbia, said he worked on monitoring the Purcell glaciers in the mid-1990s, but has not done any research in the area since then.

“I guarantee that things have changed since then, but I can’t say how they have changed,” said Maxwell, who is continuing to do some glaciology work in other areas.

The Jumbo Master Plan fact sheet on climate, water and glaciers argues global warming is actually a compelling reason to build the resort because many low-elevation ski resorts in B.C. will not be able to operate if the worst climate predictions come true.

“Even with extreme glacier retraction and a dramatic increase in global temperatures, JGR will be one of the very few locations in North America where skiing will be possible in winter because of its high elevation. In fact, the moraines that are left behind by retreating glaciers result in some of the most skiable terrain possible, when covered with snow in winter,” Oberti wrote in an e-mail.

The glaciers range from a height of 3,400 metres at the top of Jumbo to a low of 2,450 metres at the bottom of Farnham.

That means the high glaciers could actually grow, rather than recede, says the Master Plan.

However, Brian Menounos, professor of earth sciences and Canada Research Chair in glacier change at the University of Northern B.C., said glaciers in the Columbia Basin are unlikely to survive past 2100.

Brian Menounos. Photo: Univeristy of Northern B.C.

It is likely that precipitation will increase from 10 to 15 per cent because of climate change, Menounos said.

“But that doesn’t compensate for the amount of warming that is likely to occur. The modelling that I have seen says most of the ice in the Columbia Basin will not be there by 2100.”

Glaciers in western Canada started retreating in the 1920s, probably because of natural warming, but most scientists agree that, since 1980, they are strongly retreating because of human-caused climate change, Menounos said.

Large glaciers take a long time to respond, so even if everyone immediately stopped using fossil fuels, the glaciers will continue to melt “because of what we have done to them,” he said.

Some icefields in the North Coast Mountains will survive past the turn of the century, although they will be reduced by half, Menounos said.

“But in the southern interior ranges it’s not a good news story.”

Climate scientist Andrew Weaver is Green Party MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head and a lead author of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientific assessments, including the report that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Weaver scoffs at claims that the Purcell glaciers will survive or grow and described long-term plans for year-round glacier skiing as a “bit of a pipedream.”

A group that knows the glacier well is the Canadian Olympic Development Association (CODA), now known as Winsport, which spent six years training at Farnham, eventually pulling out in 2009.

“It was amazing conditions for summer training and we believe it played a key role in as many as three medals won at the Vancouver Olympics,” said Dale Oviatt, Winsport communications spokesman.

“Essentially we pulled out because of finances as it was an expensive operation to run.”

But while ski conditions on the glaciers may be good for now, the Jumbo Glacier Resort project, which will take 20 years to build, flies in the face of scientific understanding of climatic trends, Weaver said.

“It is expected that by 2100 Jumbo Glacier will be largely non-existent. In fact, just looking at the period between 1985 and 2005, the entire southeastern B.C. glacial region lost, on average, roughly 15 per cent of its mass,” he said.

Weaver cannot understand why the provincial government is supporting the private-sector proposal by funding the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality, which has no residents, and he questions whether the project is attracting investors.

“A prudent investor would ask ‘how long is this glacier going to be around?’ and would ask the scientific community,” he said.

Main Image: Commander Glacier by Pat Morrow.

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This is a guest post by Troy Sebastian, special projects coordinator for Ktunaxa Nation Council.

Amid the succulent smells of turkey and spice this Thanksgiving weekend, another season draws near.

In every municipality in British Columbia, lawn signs are popping up like plywood pumpkin patches. Door knocking has begun in earnest and no baby is safe from obligatory photo ops. Hand shakes and promises — the currency of democracy — reign once more.

Every town in the province is gearing up for municipal elections a month from now, except for one — the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality.

The reason is simple: Jumbo is a town without residents.

Jumbo is heavy on bravado and weak on substance. The project is sold as a 6,000-bed resort at the foot of a receding glacier that promises year-round skiing. Yet it is relying on taxpayer dollars to keep afloat. What Jumbo does have is the limitless support of the province in every request imaginable.

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During the past five years, the province has:

• Extended the Environmental Assessment Certificate (2009)
• Approved the project (2012)
• Amended the Local Government Act to allow the creation of Jumbo municipality (2012)
• Established Jumbo Glacier Resort Municipality with appointed mayor and council (2013)
• Provided $260,000 in funding. The municipality’s five-year financial plan relies solely on taxpayer dollars, asking for $1 million from the province through to 2018.  

Yet the province has very little to show for its support.

The developer is under significant pressure to demonstrate it has “substantially started” the project. Otherwise its Environmental Assessment Certificate will soon expire. That is why a bridge and a shack are quickly being thrown together in the Jumbo Valley.

Years of government time, money and effort in support of this project have resulted in a taxpayer-funded bridge to nowhere.

When it comes to Jumbo, the red flags are plentiful. For starters, the East Kootenay region is awash in ski resorts that are rarely at full capacity.

The closest municipality, the District of Invermere, has been officially opposed to the project for years.

At the recent Union of British Columbia Municipalities, Invermere Mayor Gerry Taft put forward a motion to oppose provincial funding for towns without residents. It was adopted unanimously.

The Ktunaxa Nation is opposed to the project as the ski resort would be located in a sacred area known as Qat’muk. Jumbo is also critical grizzly bear habitat. The NDP are opposed, as are the Greens. Heck, Hockey Hall of Famer Scott Niedermayer and Olympic Gold medalist Beckie Scott are opposed.  

Olympians, Indians and grizzly bears — oh my!

And yet, the never-ending saga of the Jumbo Glacier resort continues to push the boundaries of expectation, common sense and straight-forward believability.

The province has an opportunity to put this sad cliché where it belongs: in the dustbin of loony B.C. ideas with the likes of Fantasy Gardens, Fast Ferries and the myth of Cascadia.

Should Jumbo Glacier Resorts by found to be in violation of its obligation to substantially start its project by October 12, the province will finally be in line with realities that are impossible to ignore. No one wants it. It does not make sense. It is a costly mess.

However, should the province continue its support for Jumbo, it will embrace a level of absurdity usually reserved for governments of global ridicule. Often, democracies beset with allegations of corruption and graft are known as ‘banana republics.’ It is an unfortunate term that usually refers to countries in the developing world. Bananas do not grow in Jumbo.

The continuing saga of the Jumbo Glacier Resort symbolizes all that is wrong with British Columbia’s politics and economy. Where else but in Jumbo would we find a mayor without residents, a town without homes or a ski hill without investors? Welcome to the Jumbo Republic!

The only people who could truly give thanks for this debacle are the mayor and council of Jumbo who are not encumbered with the weight of democratic accountability. Nor are they required to express their gratitude for the largesse they enjoy at the expense of the citizens of British Columbia.

It is time for Premier Clark to stop the Jumbo Glacier Resort gravy train and bring accountability and sanity to the situation once and for all.

Keep Jumbo wild.

That is something we could all give thanks for.

Photo: Courtesy of Pat Morrow

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