Alberta - Reclaiming Canmore Part 2
The conclusion of a two-part series about how Canmore, Alberta was brought back from the brink of destruction.
EPISODE NOTES
I was very heartened by the response to this episode from ‘industry-types’ who appreciated an even-handed look at mining and best practices for responsible stewardship.
That said, I don’t think it’s possible to make a video about Canmore without a lot of the discourse being that it used to be a beautiful little secret that has now been overwhelmed by the tourism industry and turned into an eco-theme park to the chagrin of the locals. I don’t have a dog in that fight but, as a tourist who was using it as an eco-theme park, I’ll cop to feeling a little sheepish.
TRANSCRIPT
Last time, we dug down into the history of Canmore: a mining town founded on the rich seams of the Cascade Coal Basin. For almost a century, they dug underground tunnels and open pit mines and extracted 14.5 million metric tonnes of coal - while pretty much ignoring their impact on the environment.
Canmore’s life as a mining town ended in 1979, and left in its wake a land scarred by pollution and junk, not to mention three barren open pit mines.
And at the time, there’s no obligation to do more. But they make the pretty momentous decision to try and rehabilitate the broken landscape and reclaim Canmore. It would not be easy.
They mix the spoil heaps from the mine with new soil, mulch and seed mixtures that favour hardy plants, and slowly start to regrow the banks of the waterways.
They set up dams and gravel pits to filter silt and improve the quality of the water running into Canmore Creek and the Bow River.
And of course, they haul out and clear up the junk, derelict mining equipment and oil spills.
That still left the open pit mines. Here, the plan was even more ambitious. Rather than just fill them and return them to a natural state, they imagine transforming the pits into brand new artificial lakes. Like at Canmore Creek No 3.
And it wasn’t as simple as just filling it with water. Properly preparing the pit would take years. They partially backfill it, reduce maximum depth from 36m to 24m, create two shallow beach areas at either end, convert spoil heaps into gentle slopes, and hydroseed and mulch the whole area to promote plant growth.
And even after that, the water of the brand new lake is cloudy, full of silt, bubbling with methane and covered in floating debris. It’ll take another two years for it to settle down.
But all that effort paid off. In Canmore, the proof is everywhere you turn. Canmore Creek runs clear and is crowded by plant growth. Trees line the banks of the Bow River.
Here at Quarry lake, the former site of Canmore Creek No 3, it’s pretty much impossible to tell this was once an open pit mine. What remains is a beautiful park and a vibrant lake, where life has returned and thrived.
Canmore’s mining past is now at the fringes. An old entrance cut into a cliff. An engine bridge, once used to transport coal from the mines to CPR trains, now mostly used by dog walkers and hikers, and occasionally to shoot HBO series. Gravel banks on the rivers and creeks still suffused with black lumps of coal. A few pieces of artfully placed mining equipment to remind people of an almost invisible history.
And of course, this. An electric blue pool all by itself along one of the most well-trodden trails in town.
It’s fed by a drainage outlet from a long-abandoned mine shaft. That’s where it gets its high sulphur content, its rotten egg smell and its otherworldly colour.
The high sulphur content also makes the water pretty toxic to most animals and plants. But even here, swaying in the flow of the drainage pipe, you can find these: blossoming white threads of bacteria specifically evolved to thrive in sulphur rich water.
They serve as just one last little reminder: if you give nature the chance, it can reclaim just about anything.