Canyon Church Camp Board Chair Christina Whittmire reports on the Board’s continuing work towards rebuilding following the 2017 Kenow Wildfire at Waterton Lakes National Park.

The Canyon Church Camp Board of Directors had another long year of waiting and meetings with Parks Canada. Parks Canada has now done an archaeological survey of the camp area and we have sensitive areas that we will need to work around when rebuilding. I don’t believe this will impact our rebuild plan too much. However, before we can start construction, we need to get our license of occupation renewed by Parks Canada. They keep asking us to present them with more information, the latest of which is a full septic plan developed by an environmental engineer which is to be added to our proposal. Our old septic field no longer meets provincial regulations and needs to be replaced, as it is too close to the river. We are limited in area for the new septic system’s placement because the river is near the camp, and there is another stream on the camp’s east side. In order for the septic plan to be created, there were test pits that were dug, and we required permits to do that work. All of these things take time. I am happy to say that we hired a fabulous engineer who put together an environmentally-friendly system and is willing to work with Parks Canada on our behalf to get the permits in place and install the new system. We have added his report to our proposal for Parks and now wait for their approval to move ahead.

Meanwhile, we are working behind the scenes to keep the camp spirit alive. Our social media accounts have been active with “Remember when” photos and camp facts. We are always looking for items about camp to put on our Facebook and Instagram pages, so if you have something you would like to share, please send us an email or a message through Facebook.

If you are interested in staying “in the know” about camp, you are welcome to attend any of our board meetings which are held on Zoom, usually at 7 pm the first Tuesday of the month. You could even join the board if you wanted! You could also sign up as a church representative and get the inside scoop on all the happenings by email. If any of these are of interest to you, or you have any questions or would like to play a role in the camp rebuild, please contact us at campcanyon@gmail.com. You can also call our board chair, Christina Whittmire, directly at 403-328-9944.

We are looking forward to the year ahead with optimism and are very grateful for your continued support as we work towards re-opening and filling our camp with kids once again.