Jumbo Valley to be protected, ending decades-long dispute over proposed ski resort

Jumbo Glacier and Lake of the Hanging Glacier. File photo. A decades-long dispute over the development of a proposed ski resort in the mountains west of Invermere is over. The Ktunaxa Nation Council has announced that the area around the Jumbo Valley — known as Qat’muk — will be protected under a conservation framework led and governed by Indigenous Peoples. Glacier Resorts Ltd has been trying to develop a year-round ski resort in the Jumbo valley for the last 30 years but has faced significant opposition from local conservation groups and First Nations, including a number of legal challenges that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. However, development rights in the Jumbo Valley have been fully and permanently extinguished, due to a partnership between the Ktunaxa, the provincial and federal governments, and conservation groups, according to a media release. With just over $21 million in public and private funding, all tenures and interests held by Glacier Resorts Ltd have been bought out following a pair of agreements between the provincial government, Glacier Resorts Ltd. and the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Kathryn Teneese, the chair of the Ktunaxa Nation Council, characterized the announcement as the beginning […]

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