Five years later: Waterton Lakes National Park plan considers fire recovery
Like the land itself, a new management plan for Waterton Lakes National Park is marked by a powerful wildfire that tore through the southern Alberta park five years ago.
The 2022 plan, tabled in Parliament this summer, sets the park's direction for the next decade. It includes dealing with climate change and invasive species and considers ways to strengthen Indigenous relationships and connect with Canadians.
The Kenow Wildfire, however, led to a major change from the previous plan. The fire burned more than 19,000 hectares — approximately 39 per cent — of the mountainous park in September 2017 and damaged many popular picnic areas, campgrounds and hiking trails.
"We've been pretty fortunate," Parks Canada's Locke Marshall, who's the superintendent in Waterton, said in a recent interview. "We've had a lot of support from the federal government."
Marshall said some of the damaged infrastructure was already being replaced before the fire, but other areas required a complete rebuild.
"There's been a lot of work that has been done," he said. "Initially, when the fire went through, our parkways were not available, so we had to work on them to get them ready to go.
"We lost our visitor centre, but we were already in plans to build a new one. Many of our picnic areas got damaged. We've done a lot of work on our trails."
Some areas, such as roads and bridges around Red Rock Canyon, are still being rebuilt and the Crandell Mountain campground is still under construction, he said.
Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in B.C. and Canada Wildfire's scientific director, said the fire also affected a lot of the park's natural landscape.
"It burned a good chunk of the park with high-intensity severity," he said. "The effect on the vegetation and the soil was severe because it was hot and dry."
Flannigan said he's interested to learn more about how the ecosystem has recovered in the park in the five years since the fire.
"I'm hoping Waterton uses this as an educational opportunity to inform the public about fires and regeneration and biodiversity and wildlife," he said, noting there can be positive changes.
Marshall said Parks Canada has learned a lot and will continue to learn from the wildfire through various research projects.
"This has probably been an opportunity that we really haven't seen in the past — and that's just to see what the effects of a widespread fire, a fairly intense fire, has on a landscape and how the landscape itself recovers from it," he said. "And also how that recovery may be affected by changes to the climate that we've seen in the last several decades.
"So, it's a really good opportunity for science."
The research, he said, could take decades to complete. He noted there's already some visible changes in the forests.
"There has been a bit of a transformation," he said. "A lot of the forests were predominantly conifers — pine, spruce, Douglas fir. In some places … we're seeing more aspen trees, shrubs and in some places ... because of a drier, warmer climate, we may see areas that were once forested will be open meadows now.
"There's definitely a change in the landscape."
The plan notes the fire also revealed more than 70 new archeological sites and expanded 170 known sites in the area that burned.
"It was a really good opportunity for some of that archeological work to be done," Marshall said.
"We've been able to involve our nearby Indigenous communities, in particular members of the Blackfoot Confederacy — the Kainai and Piikani — in looking at that landscape and seeing it in the context of their traditional knowledge of the use of the place."
Marshall said they continue to work with the communities to document the sites, which the plan suggests will be complete by 2025.
Overall, he said, the new management plan shows the agency's ongoing commitment to protecting the park.
"It deals with the fire," said Marshall, "but it also deals with our day-to-day operations related to visitation and how we manage the ecological and cultural integrity of the place."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'Still so much love between us,' Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
What to know about avian influenza in dairy cows and the risk to humans
Why is H5N1, or bird flu, a concern, how does it spread, and is there a vaccine? Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about avian influenza.
'I was scared': Ontario man's car repossessed after missing two repair loan payments
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
opinion The special relationship between King Charles and the Princess of Wales
Royal commentator Afua Hagan writes that when King Charles recently admitted Catherine to the Order of the Companions of Honour, it not only made history, but it reinforced the strong bond between the King and his beloved daughter-in-law.
Pro-plastic lobbyist presence at UN talks is 'troubling,' say advocates
Environmentalist groups are sounding the alarm about a steep increase in the number of pro-plastic lobbyists at the UN pollution talks taking place this week.
'Too young to have breast cancer': Rates among young Canadian women rising
Breast cancer rates are rising in Canada among women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, according to research by the University of Ottawa (uOttawa).
Charlie Woods, son of Tiger, shoots 81 in U.S. Open qualifier
Charlie Woods failed to advance in a U.S. Open local qualifying event Thursday, shooting a 9-over 81 at Legacy Golf & Tennis Club.
$70M Lotto Max winners kept prize a secret from family for 2 months
During a special winner celebration near their hometown, Doug and Enid shared the story of how they discovered they were holding a Lotto Max ticket worth $70 million and how they kept this huge secret for so long.
Courteney Cox says her partner Johnny McDaid once broke up with her in therapy
Courteney Cox's longtime partner Johnny McDaid once broke up with her in a therapy session.