Underground Banff

You’d never know it was even there. Jack and Suzi are big promoters of education and awareness about animals and their preservation. So coming into Banff they were excited to explore a project that has help further wildlife species within the Park. You’d see them as you drive through along the Trans Canada Highway - a series of wildlife passes that have adopted some success. “The over and underpasses work to keep the gene pool active”, says Lorena Dmytriev of Parks Canada. “What you have done here is amazing,” says Jack on their inspection. Suzi headed out on a hunt for tracks of wild species that use this corridor. She found those of a Black Bear. Both the Black Bear and the Cougar like to use the underpasses. Grizzlies and Elk will use the overpasses- they don’t mind being exposed. We all ran up and on top of one of these- you wouldn’t know you were on an overpass…you’d think it would be something else.

It averaged out to be about 200 traffic accidents a year with Elk, since the introduction of these wildlife crossings we’ve seen a 96% reduction in that number.

“It’s the connectivity that maintains the bio diversity.”

A grizzly bear can call up to 450 square km’s home, or it’s “turf”, and so and if you get a highway that dissects the land, than you can separate the gene pool, limiting the species evolution. It keeps the gene pool stronger if there is a larger population to draw from. So the overpass allows for that access and the opportunity to species evolution.

By the time our day was done we were ready to hit the hay at the Rim Rock Resort Hotel – built on the back of the cliff. You walk up to the hotel and are met by a beautiful entrance with a small vertical impact…you walk inside to a 15 floor property with half of it scaling down the side of the valley. Build in with an amphitheatre-esque design affords guests a spectacular view of Mount Rundle and or well into the Bow Valley and over the town of Banff. It was just this year that the hotel won for best “The Canadian Culinary Foundation’s 2009 Pastry Chef of the Year”- of which the crew sure took advantage of over a stellar dinner.