WILDERNESS and WATERPOWER: HOW BANFF NATIONAL PARK BECAME a HYDROELECTRIC STORAGE RESERVOIR Christopher Armstrong and H
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University of Calgary Press www.uofcpress.com WILDERNESS AND WATERPOWER: HOW BANFF NATIONAL PARK BECAME A HYDROELECTRIC STORAGE RESERVOIR Christopher Armstrong and H. V. Nelles ISBN 978-1-55238-635-4 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. It is an electronic version of a book that can be purchased in physical form through any bookseller or on-line retailer, or from our distributors. Please support this open access publication by requesting that your university purchase a print copy of this book, or by purchasing a copy yourself. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] Cover Art: The artwork on the cover of this book is not open access and falls under traditional copyright provisions; it cannot be reproduced in any way without written permission of the artists and their agents. 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Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the wording around open access used by Australian publisher, re.press, and thank them for giving us permission to adapt their wording to our policy http://www.re-press.org/content/view/17/33/ WildernessWilderness andand WaterpowerWaterpower How Banff National Park Became a Hydroelectric Storage Reservoir Christopher Armstrong and H. V. Nelles Wilderness and Waterpower Energy, Ecology, and the Environment Series ISSN 1919-7144 (Print) ISSN 1925-2935 (Online) This series explores how we live and work with each other on the planet, how we use its resources, and the issues and events that shape our thinking on energy, ecology, and the environment. The Alberta experience in a global arena is showcased. No. 1 · Places: Linking Nature, Culture and Planning J. Gordon Nelson and Patrick L. Lawrence No. 2 · A New Era for Wolves and People: Wolf Recovery, Human Attitudes, and Policy Edited by Marco Musiani, Luigi Boitani, and Paul Paquet No. 3 · The World of Wolves: New Perspectives on Ecology, Behaviour and Management Edited by Marco Musiani, Luigi Boitani, and Paul Paquet No. 4 · Parks, Peace, and Partnership: Global Initiatives in Transboundary Conservation Edited by Michael S. Quinn, Len Broberg, and Wayne Freimund No. 5 · Wilderness and Waterpower: How Banff National Park Became a Hydroelectric Storage Reservoir Christopher Armstrong and H. V. Nelles Wilderness and Waterpower How Banff National Park Became a Hydroelectric Storage Reservoir Christopher Armstrong and H. V. Nelles Energy, Ecology, and the Environment Series ISSN 1919-7144 (Print) ISSN 1925-2935 (Online) © 2013 Christopher Armstrong and H.V. Nelles University of Calgary Press 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, Alberta Canada T2N 1N4 www.uofcpress.com This book is available as an ebook which is licensed under a Creative Commons license. The publisher should be contacted for any commercial use which falls outside the terms of that license. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Armstrong, Christopher, 1942- Wilderness and waterpower [electronic resource] : how Banff National Park became a hydroelectric storage reservoir / Christopher Armstrong and H.V. Nelles. (Energy, ecology, and the environment series, 1925-2935 ; no. 5) Includes bibliographical references and index. Electronic monograph. Issued also in print format. ISBN 978-1-55238-635-4 (PDF).—ISBN 978-1-55238-636-1 (PDF).—ISBN 978-1-55238-637-8 (HTML) 1. Water-power—Alberta—Banff National Park—History. 2. Bow River Watershed (Alta.)—Power utilization—History. 3. Reservoirs— Alberta—Banff National Park—History. 4. Wilderness areas—Economic aspects—Alberta—History. 5. Electric power consumption—Alberta—History. I. Nelles, H. V. (Henry Vivian), 1942- II. Title. III. Series: Energy, ecology, and the environment series (Online) ; no. 5 HD9685.C33A43 2013 333.91’409712332 C2012-908283-X The University of Calgary Press acknowledges the support of the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Multimedia Development Fund for our publications. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This project was also funded in part by the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation, using funds provided by the Alberta Lottery Fund. The Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University also provided financial support. Cover Photo: Bow Falls in Canadian Rockies © g01xm (istockphoto.com) Cover design, page design, and typesetting by Melina Cusano Table of Contents Introduction vii 1 Water Falls 1 2 Power Struggle 15 3 Doubling Down 35 4 Downstream Benefits 51 5 Selling Scenery 73 6 Political Logic 97 7 Minnewanka Redux 119 8 War Measures 133 9 Public Power 155 10 Reversing Rivers 165 11 Leaving the Bow 183 12 Conclusion 203 Appendix 223 Notes 225 Index 259 v Calgary Power Hydroelectric Installations on the Bow River Introduction We do not often think of the iconic Banff National Park being made to serve mundane corporate functions such as storing water for hydroelec- tric stations. But it does. By the same token, we do not think of electricity as being a major force in the development of national parks policy. But it was. It might be ventured that electricity was as much a factor in the his- tory of Banff National Park as was the CPR. Why did Banff National Park have to be significantly altered to -ac commodate hydroelectric storage? More broadly, how did the production and consumption of electricity in southern Alberta shape Canada’s pre- mier national park? This book attempts to answer those questions in a narrative of hydroelectric development in the Bow River watershed. We do not mean to imply that the Banff we know is the result of something simply being plugged in. Rather, we offer an account in which path-dependent technology and hardening public policy continuously collided, driven by a relentless urban demand for electricity. But this is not a story of technological determinism. There is nothing automatic or predetermined about our story. At every point in the narrative, people made choices. Almost from the beginning of the electric age, Banff National Park came under continuous pressure to accommodate the Calgary Power Company’s need to modify the Bow River watershed to make electricity. That pressure was not absolute, but relative. It was not so much electricity itself as the method of its generation that led the power company to cast covetous eyes upon a national park. Calgary Power made a strategic vii decision at the outset to generate electricity using hydroelectric power. There were other ways of generating electricity. In a coal-rich region, thermal electric power represented a viable alternative. But the company chose instead to rely upon falling water in the Bow River for its energy, primarily because hydroelectricity was cheaper to produce over the long term. But as it turned out, the Bow River – a glacier-fed mountain river in a region of hard winters – experienced dramatic seasonal streamflow changes. As a result, it was not ideally suited to the efficient production of electricity on a constant basis throughout the year. To produce enough electricity to meet its commitments in all seasons, and to earn a profit, the company had to redesign the river to make it a better source of power. That is what led Calgary Power into a series of negotiations to create storage and generating facilities upstream in, as fate would have it, a national park. The phrasepath dependence describes a familiar predicament: early choices in system design virtually determine downstream incremental change. Or, in a more elegant formulation, path dependence exists “when the present state of a system is constrained by its history.”1 Familiar exam- ples of this phenomenon include the gauge, or track width, of a railroad; the choice between 25 and 60 cycles, or 110 and 220 volts in electricity delivery; the QWERTY keyboard; and combined or separate sanitary and drainage sewers in cities.