Around the Mountains: Canmore debates degrees of localness

CANMORE, Alberta — In a bid to strike justice in the cemetery, Canmore has been debating the various degrees of localdom.

Lifelong residents get an automatic pass to the great beyond in the town's cemetery, provided they paid about $2,000 for a cemetery plot. But the cost for non-residents is more than $4,000.

The Rocky Mountain Outlooks reports a discussion among city officials about the degree of cost that should be levied to residents who have left Canmore but want to be buried there; those who have maintained vacation homes for decades but never became full-time residents; and still others in hope of eternal residence.

Trailers on way out in Idaho town

HAILEY, Idaho — The trailers that line River Street in Hailey, a town down-valley from Ketchum and Sun Valley, will likely disappear, one by one. They cannot be replaced under town and state law, notes the Idaho Mountain Express. Those codes require, at the very least, manufactured homes set on foundations, building officials say.

Banff may seek to put back the wildlife pieces

BANFF, Alberta — Wildlife biologists see bison and woodland caribou as the only two significant pieces of the ecosystem missing from Banff National Park. Some planning is now underway to reintroduce both species.

“The idea is really around ensuring this national park has the full range of naturally occurring species,” said Kevin Van Tighem, superintendent of Banff.

Bones excavated within the park prove the bison were there 10,370 years ago. What may have been the last wild bison was shot in 1858, near Lake Louise.

For a time, Banff had a small herd of bison, but only within a fenced area. Van Tighem rejected the idea of a “show herd.”

But some in Alberta worry that the bison will be like those in the Yellowstone ecosystem, where bison from Yellowstone National Park have wandered onto adjacent private lands in Montana, causing ranchers to worry about spread of brucellosis.

“Bison, of course, would not confine themselves to a national park, and that would create fairly significant management issues for us,” said Dave Eagley, spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.

Woodland caribou might also be restored – provided wildlife ecologists can figure out what caused the long-term decline. An avalanche wiped out most, if not all, of Banff's tiny caribou herd earlier this year. But the park had 23 caribous as recently as the late 1980s. Predation by wolves may have been partially responsible.

An even more significant challenge will be to figure out where caribou may be available for reintroduction into Banff. The species is listened as threatened in Canada.