A number of people who live in Banff are staging a protest after Parks Canada cut down several old trees in front of its administration building.
About 60 trees were cut down two weeks ago and now only the stumps remain.
“Now that they're gone, you just took it that it’s Banff, there's trees, it’s pine trees, it's awesome. And then when they're gone it's like wow what a difference. So it's shocking,” said Denise Swick.
The trees were mostly Spruce but also included some Aspen and fruit trees.
They were likely planted some time in the 1890's before the administration building and the Cascades of Time Garden were constructed.
Parks Canada specialists made the difficult decision to remove all the trees after a large limb fell off one of them last year.
Parks officials say it comes down to public safety and that they couldn't risk a visitor being injured by a falling branch or tree.
“They determined that the trees were danger trees for a variety of different reasons that deals with age, location and the health and wellness of the trees. As soon as they were assessed as danger trees we were obligated to remove the risk,” said Steve Malins from Parks Canada.
Parks Canada says the next step of the project is to remove the stumps while the ground is still frozen.
‘We want to make sure that we maintain that look and feel that everybody's been accustomed to. We want to have the vibrant colours and the variety in plantings here, so when we rehabilitate this part of the garden it will look and feel the same as what people have been used to for over 100 years,” said Malins.
The space will be replanted with native trees and flowers when the ground thaws out.
(With files from Kevin Fleming)
