John Third stands at the site where he and other investors hope to build a glamping site in Canmore, Alta.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
It sits on top of the signature coal mine that made the Town of Canmore. But it’s the focus of a glamour-camping fight in a Rocky Mountain community trying to balance quality of life with the driver of its new economy – tourism.
John (Jay) Third, a partner and project manager for “Trailhaus,” hopes the area – about an hour’s drive west of Calgary – will eventually become a 74-site glamping campground on almost 10 hectares of private land.
“Below us is Canmore mine Number 1 – a coal seam and several other mines so the intention was to kind of play on the historic nature of the property and the community itself,” he said last week while tramping above the mine.
The project, on the Staircase Lands, was initially named “Miners Camp” and Third said it’s been in the works for a couple of years. He said the land has sat idle for 60 years and the project will be careful to meet all planning and environmental concerns.
The Canadian Anthracite Coal Company opened No. 1 in 1887 to mine high quality coal used for steam engines before closing in 1916. It’s the mine that turned this community on the lip of Banff National Park from a whistle stop into a boom town.
But the coal is long gone and in recent years Canmore has grown – exploded, actually – into a tourism hub for hikers, bikers, campers, kayakers and more. The growth has put pressure on scarce housing, not to mention the domino effects on parking, infrastructure and the environment.
Canmore resident Wendy Walker says it’s time to draw the line at Trailhaus.
Walker, who lives in an established neighbourhood about five minutes away, has launched a petition opposing the construction. She has 2,500 signatures.
“Enough is enough. Canmore is over-developed and we’re all desperately trying to slow it down,” Walker said in an interview.
“We just don’t have the infrastructure. We don’t have the staff. We don’t have the accommodation. Over-tourism is an issue.”
Glamping – short for glamorous camping – is essentially camping where you rough it, but it’s not so rough. Campers sleep in tents, cabins, yurts or other outdoor-style shelters, but often there are beds, maybe electricity, in order to experience nature with some of the sharper edges smoothed out.
Trailhaus would have units build on a wood platform with a traditional hunting or outfitter style canvas tent. They would come with beds, furniture and some would have bathrooms and showers.
“We looked at the growing market of glamping, not just in Canada, but throughout all of North America and one of the key aspects was it being on the footsteps of Banff National Park as well as in the heart of the Canadian Rockies,” Third said about the site.
But Walker says there are big problems: wildlife and wildfire. She says the glampground could see residents run into bear and elk on a nearby wildlife corridor. And if there is a massive wildfire similar to the one that forced everyone in the Rocky Mountain town of Jasper to flee two years ago, there could be a very dangerous bottleneck.
“There’s only one way in and one way out, so in terms of evacuation plans we’re terrified especially after what happened in Jasper,” Walker said.
Zachary Richardson, the managing partner who owns the Trailhaus property, says he understands concerns from residents.
Richardson said he spent a year when he was in his 20s driving across North America and got the glamping bug when he stayed in a tent near Morocco in the Sahara.
“I love camping and I love the outdoors in Canmore. And I just think the two of them just make sense,” Richardson said.
“The location is just too hard to pass up. It gives the feel that you’re secluded in the woods but you’re close to everything.”
McKenzie McMillan, with the Vancouver-based Travel Group, doesn’t book a lot of glamping trips within Canada, but said the Amangiri resort in Utah is popular as well as the Four Seasons in Puerto Vallarta, which comes with tree houses.
“It’s definitely a market segment that has increasing demand,” McMillan said pointing to several properties in B.C. that offer glamping.
“We all get to a certain age where yeah, we don’t want to sleep directly on the ground anymore.”