Since Kananaskis Country’s designation as a park in 1970, more than 11,000 rescues have occurred in the mountainous region. Burke Duncan, a public safety specialist for more than 35 years, has been involved in many of the attempts to retrieve backcountry skiers, hikers and campers, from dangerous situations.
“We're never scared, but we have a heightened sense of awareness,” explains Duncan. “Sometimes it's an extremely heightened sense of awareness, because a lot of things we end up doing are way up there on the danger scale.”
Duncan, the longest serving member of the department, has announced his retirement and Friday was his final day at his post. Duncan admits the position, at which he has excelled, was not his first career choice
“I wanted to be a fisheries biologist,” recalls Duncan. “That's what it started out as but there's not many jobs in that line of work.”
“The first summer job that was even closely related was working with parks, and I got into it and thought I kind of like this.”
Duncan’s retirement came as a surprise to his colleagues, he made his decision two weeks ago, and the consensus among his peers is his departure will leave a void in the department.
“35 years of experience we're going to lose,” said Public Safety Specialist Mike Koppang. “We've tried to take as much of his experience as we can from him, but whenever you lose someone who has that level of experience, it's a loss to the program, but it's a great opportunity for him to go and retire as well, so we're pretty psyched for him on that.”
While Duncan will no longer don the uniform, the retiree will continue to visit his workplace. Duncan plans to spend a considerable amount of time skiing in the Kananaskis backcountry.
