Wildsight worries — fictions not facts
December 6, 2009 by CVNews
Filed under Business, Environment, Government, Letters, Recreation
Farnham Glacier base camp for Olympic ski training (Photo by CVNews - Sep 4, 2009)
by Grant Costello.
Larsen’s attacks on Glacier Resorts Ltd. include one telling phrase; “since the area is larger and no longer held by a non-profit organization” Apparently profits are so evil that any means can be used to discredit those involved in their pursuit. There are three great fictions that Quinn and Larsen are trying to perpetrate on the unknowing public about Glacier’s involvement at Farnham and they continue to beat the same drum no matter what evidence against their false claims is presented by the parties involved who actually know what the truth is.
Fiction # 1. Glacier somehow illegitimately received a ten year License of Occupation on Farnham Glacier for its own profit and gain.
Fact: Glacier was asked by the Province and CODA at the urging of Ken Read, then President of Alpine Canada Alpin, to enter into a long term License of Occupation on Farnham in order to provide the security of access to Farnham for Canadian Elite athletes through three Olympic cycles. GRL not only agreed to do so but committed to dedicate the prime terrain on Farnham exclusively to the snowsports teams for ten years for $1 per year. This agreement resulted in a 10 year sub-license to CODA, the Calgary Olympic Development Association, (now known as The Wintersport Canada Institute). All of the existing improvements were in place when GRL took over the License. The area under license was increased in size to include the access road, built by CODA in 2006, between the forestry road and the glacier.
Fiction #2. Glacier built a road from the camp to the west flank of the glacier without proper permits.
Fact: The License of Occupation granted GRL the rights to “access” the glacier and this includes building roads. This fact is known by Wildsight members including Quinn who were told by the Minister of Tourism Sports and the Arts in a public statement that GRL was “within its rights”.
Fiction #3. A washout in a creek below Farnham Glacier was caused by the road GRL constructed in 2008.
Fact: A natural event occurred in mid July 2009 which caused one of the small creeks coming off the glacier to jump its banks in a number of places, including where it crossed GRL’s road. The increased volume of water was due to an intense rainfall overnight combined with warm temperatures at high elevations and rapidly melting fern snow on the glacier. The creek scoured a new path in multiple locations eroding the banks as it went. It is called runoff, Arnor. The pictures provided by Wildsight show the location where GRL’s contractor was preparing to install a large culvert, which would have likely mitigated the resulting erosion. The reason that culvert was not installed in 2008 was that Larsen’s’ group chose to blockade the road to Farnham resulting in a work stoppage.
In addition to repeating the known falsehoods above, when asked by local media how he accessed the camp Larsen was said to have replied, ‘I walk up from the bottom by the sign.” See attached picture of Larsen’s vehicle at the camp on September 4th 2009.
Despite the continuing efforts by some Wildsight members using questionable tactics to disrupt our activities and discredit us, we at Glacier Resorts Ltd. will continue our efforts to provide permanent training facilities for Canadian snowsports athletes at Farnham Glacier in the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort.
Grant Costello
Vice-President
Glacier Resorts Ltd
Invermere BC
And we thank you for your continued support of our Olympic skiers, and our local kids here in the Columbia Valley Grant and Oberto. In spite of a determined group of nay sayers, you have made available to the masses, a second to none facility that can do nothing but help our entire community.
Thank you
And to Quinn and Larsen’s continued lies and deception, you two will have to understand that lies show forever, your true character.
Walter
I can’t say I have been following the Jumbo affair very closely, but this is the very first time I realized that in addition to wanting to build a ski resort there, the company was also in a long-term endeavor to sponsor Olympic ski training opportunities.
In my mind this throws a whole different light on Jumbo. Why are you not making a bigger thing of this?
While I am not very keen on seeing *development* in the Jumbo Valley, I think it is great that you are providing such training opportunities.
Hi Sherpa,
Camp Greene High Performance Centre has been referred to ‘Canada’s Secret Weapon’ for young athletes to realize their goals. All things considered; access, terrain, lane space availability and camp Greene itself, it is considered to be one of the best facilities of its kind in the world. It is the envy of international coaches everywhere. Young athletes can train long hours in the off season without the inconvenience and expense associated with traveling to the southern hemisphere.
A national training centre for snow-sport athletes was the dream long before the Jumbo Valley was earmarked for recreational purposes via the CORE process in the 90′s. Our national alpine racers are posting some very solid results this season, all of them have trained at Farnham glacier. As a proud supporter of the camp at Farnham glacier, I and others like to believe that training opportunities offered there played a part in that. These are today’s top level Canadian athletes; todays achievements are truly the result of a life long commitment to training that started for most of them at around age 5 or 6. Tomorrows snow sport heros are in hidden in 5 and 6 year old bodies right now. They train in Nancy Greene programs all over Canada. By the time they are 11 or so they will require off season, on-snow training to perform at the highest levels and the realization of their future goals depend on the continued operations at Farnham Glacier.
The Winsport Canada Institute (formerly CODA) who operate the camp and are committed to training for national and provincial level athletes are finding it difficult to continue to offer spots for young, amateur athletes to participate in this opportunity. If, we as a community, can agree on nothing else, I believe that “providing such training opportunities” for our youth is something we should all value. My sons and I have toured at farnham many times. My 12 year old son (when he was 11) had the opportunity to train at two 5 day camps at Farnham. I was fortunate to participate as a coach at one of those camps. I can tell you first hand that the experience of training in such a wonderful place and the benefits in skiing that are realized are a far off distant second to the experience as a whole. Being perched on the side of a glacier for 5 days, surrounded by the highest concentration of 11,000 ft + peaks in BC teaches these young folks a massive respect for the natural world and a desire to appreciate and preserve it coupled with utilizing it at its highest and best use.
It is my hope that, as a community, we will continue to embrace this opportunity. We proudly claim Manuel-Osborne-Paradis as our ‘local guy’ because he called Invermere home for a while. Last Sunday, he won the Super-G at Lake Louise. Young members from the Windermere Valley Ski Club were feet away from him to share in his achievement. It is moments like these that our young athletes get to see first hand what is possible with hard work and a community that supports their efforts. We need to protect this ‘Canadian gem.’
visit http://www.winsportcanada.ca/facilities/camp_green.cfm For info on Camp Greene
Good Mornng Sherpa
As to JGL and Fanham and the nay sayers, if you go to the letter close to the top of this home page titled, Wildsite worries,- facts not fiction you will see how foolishly the negatvie side is acting.
They shut down the maintenance and building of a better road to the extent that no contractor was able to access the location and then cry foul when the consequences of their self same actions cause some minor damge to the watercourse, lie to people about how they arrived at the site and on and on and on.
It is no wonder that so many people in this area are fed up with Wildsite and the so called Jumbo CC groups. More and more people are seeing through the web of lies and fear mongering that Quinn / Campsel / Larson have been weaving for so many years. The Widlsite Worries are just the latest example
It is truly amazing
GO JUMBO GO…. Local skitraining on glaciers is one of the reasons why Team Austria is successful. Local kids at a very young age get to ski almost year round on glaciers in austria. If you can train on local terrain 10 month out of the year compare to 4 month, well you do the math……It is important for our young skiracers and freestylers to train almost year round now in order to be able to compete with the world in the future. It is almost impossible for even a ten year old local kid to keep up with a ten year old kid from austria or any other euro alps countries since they already do have the advantage to train year round. Come on Canada… you can fly too.
I used to live in Invermere, which changed it’s name to Novermere, and will be changing again soon to Gonevermere, Wake up!
You know Andrea, nobody could have said what you said in a better manner and in support of the kids and the Olympians trying to use these facilities on Farnham Glacier thanks to CODA and Jumbo Glacier Resort.
thank you
Go #@!% yourself costello
Anonymous’s post sums up nicely the quality of too many of those opposed to Jumbo…imagine what they are doing to people’s reputations, businesses even their parked cars when no one is looking!
This is precisely why I have fought so hard for this project for so long…people like this cannot be allowed to prevail.
Ahy, is not reasoned debate and discussion very stimulating yes ? No?
You have to feel extremely sorry for the above Anoymous intelligent and lucid comments.
I just read in the Valley Echo from last week’s edition about the responses of both CODA and Costello as to how they responded months prior to Larson and Wildsite went on a rant.
Really does show again, where Quinn and Larson are coming from doesn’t it.
They repudiate every thing that Arno and Quinn said, completely.