Mountain Park - Cheviot

Making Mountain Park a Reality

Read the latest press release from the campaign to stop the Cheviot open-pit coal mine.

Visit the  Mountain Park website. 




High in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, astride the continental divide between those waters flowing to the Arctic Ocean and those to the Atlantic, lies a wildland rich in history and nationally significant for its biological diversity.  Named in 1910 for its park-like landscape, the proposed park of 461 km2 is one of the most extensive mosaics of alpine and sub-alpine habitats found in the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains.  Its protection is also essential for maintaining the ecological integrity of Jasper National Park, a United Nations designated World Heritage Site.  It is key to securing a future for the region’s grizzly bears and other carnivores. 

Leading a coalition of local and national organizations, Sierra Club’s goal is the preservation of this area’s unique combination of cultural and ecological values by gaining its designation as an integrated Wildland Provincial Park and National Historic Park, and achieving its inclusion in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site designation.  We’re part way there!  Since 1996, when the Cheviot open-pit coal mine was proposed in the heart of the candidate park, the conservation coalition has gained a third of it as park.

Mountain Park at a Glance

Special Values:

• Portions not glaciated during the last Ice Age, leaving a refugium of the direct descendants of plants and insects that were there at least 11,000 years ago.
• Sustains an ancient, unbroken chain of aboriginal use of medicinal plants.
• Preponderance of rare, disjunct, and threatened species.
• Critical habitat for the endangered bull trout and 29 species of mammals and birds listed as threatened in Alberta, include grizzly bears, wolverines, northern long-eared bats and Harlequin ducks. 
• A species richness and diversity of song birds that is “as high as it gets in North America.”(1) 
• Site of historic “Mountain Park;” Canada’s highest village in elevation during the life of a remote, early 1900s underground coal mine.
  
  Major Threats:
  
  
  
  Cheviot mine, clearcut logging and off-highway vehicles.
  
  Key Opportunities:
• World Conservation Union’s and UN World Heritage Committee’s expressed concern for the area’s future.
• Region looking for diversification from its dependence on resource extraction.
• Alberta’s Endangered Species Conservation Committee has heightened the status of grizzly bears to “Threatened” and recommended an effective recovery plan.
  
  To Help and Find Out More:
  See our Mountain Park website. 
  
  Endnote
  (1) Statement by Canadian Wildlife Service during 1997 hearing on the proposed Cheviot mine.

  Grizzly bear photo © Robin White/FotoLex
  Landscape photo © D L Pachal