Yesterday, stakeholders celebrated an announcement that the Jumbo Valley in the heart of British Columbia’s Purcell Mountains would stay wild forever, ending a famous 30-year fight to develop a proposed ski resort in the area. Thanks to a collaboration between the Ktunaxa Nation Council (KNC), the Government of Canada, the Province of British Columbia and the Nature Conservancy of Canada, development rights in the Jumbo Valley have been fully and permanently extinguished.
The proposed resort, located in Qat’muk, the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa Nation west of Invermere, BC, would have occupied nearly 15,000 acres and accessed four different glaciers. For nearly three decades, local residents, concerned citizens and the Ktunaxa Nation strongly opposed the resort’s development for environmental, economic and spiritual reasons, a fight that gained international attention with Patagonia’s 2015 Jumbo Wild film by Sweetgrass Productions.
Public and private funding enabled the buyout of all tenures and interests held by Glacier Resorts Ltd. This buyout was secured through an agreement between the Province and Glacier Resorts Ltd., and enabled by an agreement between the Nature Conservancy of Canada (on behalf of the Ktunaxa Nation) and Glacier Resorts Ltd.
After years of resisting development of these traditional lands, KNC plans to move forward to immediately ensure effective stewardship and conservation of the central Purcell mountains, including Qat’muk, through the creation of an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA). An IPCA is distinguished by Indigenous creation and founded on the Indigenous relationship to land. It will serve to protect both cultural values and biological diversity in part of the Central Purcell Mountains for all time.
“Today reflects the strength, tenacity and courage of Kootenay people, especially the Ktunaxa Nation,” said Michelle Mungall, BC Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. “To be able to say that Jumbo, Qat’muk, will remain wild is a long time coming. That we are working towards an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area is reconciliation in action and it is the right thing to do. Keep Jumbo Wild is no longer a bumper sticker pleading for the very center of our region. It is a reality.”
The creation of the IPCA will take several years of collaboration between KNC, the federal and provincial governments, and other parties. KNC envisions the area spanning about 70,000 hectares immediately north of the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy and encompassing the Jumbo valley and parts of adjacent watersheds. Access in the area, popular among backcountry skiers in winter and hikers and backpackers in summer, will remain status quo during discussions on the IPCA.
The initiative to buy out developments rights was made possible by contributions from the Government of Canada through the Canada Nature Fund, the Wyss Foundation, Wilburforce Foundation, Patagonia, the Columbia Basin Trust and Donner Canadian Foundation.
“Qat’muk is the spiritual home of the grizzly bear and of profound importance to our Nation,” said Kathryn Teneese, chairperson of the Ktunaxa Nation Council. “Grizzly bear spirit’s home will become part of a larger Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA). So, today marks both an end and a beginning.”
