Water Water Everywhere
In the wake of the Alberta floods, a much-needed history lesson September 2013
Most park supporters in Canada are aware of the double-edged sword of access and damage accruing to highway and railroad development in our first and most famous national park. Some of my own generation, however, might be startled by Christopher Armstrong and H.V. Nelles’s reminder in Wilderness and Waterpower: How Banff National Park Became a Hydro-Electric Storage Reservoir that the production of hydroelectricity “was as much a factor in the history of Banff National Park as was the CPR.” If we are blasé about dams and reservoirs in Banff and region…