The Glenbow Ranch Park Foundation is gearing up for a new season, looking for volunteers, funding, and ideas.
Newly-minted CEO Jeromy Farkas met with a group of volunteers and other interested people at the park last Thursday, Feb. 15, to run some ideas past them and gather feedback.
The park saw a total of 200,000 visitors last year.
Farkas said once all the trail links are completed to Calgary (including the Trans Canada Trail) he expects that 200,000 to double.
But that’s the long range vision.
Farkas said after spending hours interacting with local residents at the SLS Centre this past year, he was surprised to hear how many of them were not even aware of the park.
In order to raise the profile of the park and the Foundation, Farkas said more visitors are the key.
To achieve that goal, the board is planning on building on existing successes while staying flexible and open to new ideas.
Looking to build on the popularity of some of last year’s offerings, Farkas outlined some of the programs being planned for this year.
This summer they’re planning on bringing back the golf cart tours, seniors tours, guided walking tours, photography tours, interpretive field trips, summer camps, and the Park Talk Series.
Talks could cover things like bats, birds, history of the park area, and bison.
Farkas said one of the keys to ensuring the viability of the park is to make sure there’s a steady flow of new visitors, who will be impressed with what they see as soon as they see it.
“I happen to think Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park is one of the best kept secrets in southern Alberta – seeing is believing,” he said.
One new program taking registrations right now is a talk with John Copithorne called Ranching 101 on Feb. 26. It will be about ranching in the 21st century.
Looming in the background of everything connected to the park is the pending decision of the provincial government on the proposed Bow River Reservoir project.
The province is currently conducting a feasibility study into three options for a reservoir along the Bow River to help protect Calgary and communities downstream from flooding and to help surrounding areas in case of drought.
The Glenbow East Option – the most easterly option – would start on the western edge of Calgary, require the relocation of the CP Rail line, and would flood sections of the provincial park.
If that option is chosen (requiring a dam near Cochrane), the project would potentially flood up to half of the park, destroying most of the trail system. It would also completely destroy and submerge nearby Haskayne Legacy Park, which was just opened last September.
Farkas said he’s confident the government will make the right choice and not opt for the option that floods out a portion of the 10-year-old GRPP and would completely destroy the Haskayne park that’s only months old.
He said the issue has had a “chilling effect” on conversations involving potential fundraising, not to mention the impression it might leave on the families that settled the area and have been very generous in the past in donating land for parks and reserves.
Farkas has been keeping a close eye on the process. He said the government is likely to make a decision on which option is best by September/October, put it to a cabinet vote in December, and then be in a position to announce the result sometime early in 2025.
The other two options are both to the west: decommissioning the existing Ghost Dam and relocating it, or creating a dam near Morley on the Stoney Nakada First Nation.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has declared temperate grasslands to be the least protected and most endangered ecosystems on the planet. Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park works to protect over 3,000 acres of native fescue grasslands.
Glenbow Ranch Park Foundation (GRPF) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park (GRPP) and other lands that possess important heritage and ecological value.
Established in 2007 by the Harvie Family, their Mission is “to protect and promote Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park through engagement, education, collaboration and conservation.”
To find out more about ways to volunteer, fundraise, donate, or what’s coming up this year, go to grpf.ca.
