History of Kananaskis, Alberta

From pioneer quests to faded dreams and Olympic glory, Kananaskis Valley is a place of legends
by Johnnie Bachusky

 

From the parking lot at Ribbon Creek, a popular recreational area in Alberta's mountainous Kananaskis Valley, a large open meadow can be seen along the eastern slopes of Mount Allan, the spectacular venue for alpine events during the 1988 Winter Olympics. At the eastern base of the mountain, a half kilometer from the parking lot near Highway 40, hikers sometimes wander into another clearing; a narrow avenue sprinkled with gravel and chunks of coal. At the far end behind bushes and trees, there are odd cement foundations and a cluster of rusted pipes popping out of the ground. A further search in the bushes uncovers the remains of tarpaper shacks and scores of rusted-out tin cans.

These are the last fading remnants of a ghost town called Kovach, or "Ribbon Crick", as former residents called it. The alpine meadow is where the open pit coal mine used to be from 1947 to 1952. And beneath the ski runs on the other side of the mountain, officially known today as Nakiska, are long forgotten tunnels used for the coal mine's underground operations.

There are a few interpretative historical signs in the Ribbon Creek parking lot and nearby Kovach Pond, but the overall story of "Ribbon Crick" and the accompanying pioneer tales of Kananaskis Valley is unjustly short.

Before the arrival of first European explorers in the 19th century, Kananaskis Valley was considered home to the nomadic Stoney Indians, a mountain Sioux band. From the barren flats in what is now known as the Bow Valley, and into the treacherous alpine paths, the Stoneys hunted and trapped by following the seasonal migration habits of bighorn sheep and deer.

By the mid-1800s, the natural cycle of game in the valley was at its nadir, and most natives moved on to better hunting grounds. However, the first wave of European explorers had by then found the outer perimetres of the Kananaskis Valley.

In 1854, James Sinclair, a university-educated Red River settler, led an expedition from the north end of the valley to the Lower and Upper Kananaskis lakes country.

Historical accounts of Sinclair's expedition are unconfirmed but it is known that in 1848, he told British explorer John Palliser of the route, details previously passed on to Sinclair in 1841 by a native chief named Mackipictoon.

Palliser was commissioned by the British government in 1857 to lead an expedition to investigate the resources of the largely unexplored expanses of the Canadian West. With Sinclair's information in mind, Palliser's team began its quest through the uncharted mountain valley the British explorer called Kananaskis Pass, named after a local Indian who had made a remarkable recovery from an axe wound. Palliser's expedition began north and swept through the valley until eventually reaching the 2,363-metre summit of North Kananaskis Pass.

Along the way, expedition member Dr. James Hector made the first geological study of the area, partly in response to the gold rush then spreading like a alpine wildfire through central British Columbia. But for thousands of prospectors who subsequently tried to find gold in the Alberta Rockies, it was never to be. Gold is more commonly found in "hot rocks"; stone that is formed by the solidification of molten material. Alberta has very little in the way of volcanic material. British Columbia, on the other hand, has an abundance of these potentially gold bearing rocks.

But Alberta, particularly the Kananaskis Valley, has its share of pioneer stories of half-crazed gold hunters, the most sensational being the legend of the Lost Lemon Mine: a tale of discovery, murder and madness involving two prospectors named Lemon and Blackjack. Legend has it they found a huge seam of gold in the mountains in 1870 but got into a violent argument, ending with Lemon splitting his partner's head open with an axe in the middle of the night. The gold was never recovered nor mined, and to this day, the story of the Lost Lemon Mine is veiled in mystery, but still generating ongoing camp fire theories and debate.

Although gold was not to be the answer to the dreams of trailblazing pioneers of the Kananaskis Valley, the discovery of huge coal seams by the turn of the 20th century triggered new hope and excitement, even as far away as the most prestigious financial houses in Europe.

Renowned geologist Donald Bogart Dowling made the first detailed geological surveys of the Ribbon Creek area from 1903 to 1909. Dowling, whose work also included drawing the first boundaries of Jasper National Park and assessing large quantities of coal strata throughout the Rocky Mountains, was one of many people then taking a keen interest in the valley, including famed trapper George W. Pocaterra, who prospected for coal in the Evan-Thomas Creek valley and along the slopes of Elpocca Mountain near Highwood Pass.

The geologist's findings were enthusiastically embraced by German entrepreneur Martin Cohn, who came to Canada in 1906 as the emissary of the German Development Company (GDC), which was formed to investigate the potential of western Canada's natural resources.

In 1907, Cohn, accompanied by Dowling, made an expedition on horseback through Kananaskis Valley and staked a claim on Mount Allan. He then returned to Germany to report on Ribbon Creek's potential to his financial backers. At first, German experts scoffed at the notion of any significant high-quality coal deposits in the Canadian Rockies, but a follow-up first-hand inspection by the Berlin Academy of Mining convinced German financiers to follow Cohn's lead.

That same year, GDC staked four coal fields in Big West Country, north-west of the Kananaskis coalfield in central-west Alberta. A decision had to be made on which area to develop first: the southern coal field in the Kananaskis Valley or the northern coal fields in Big West Country. Cohn favored Kananaskis as it would be closer to eastern Canadian and American markets and existing rail lines, and therefore cheaper to develop. However, European decision makers had other ideas. GDC hired Belgium banker Eugene de Wassermann in 1909 to organize the funding through the most prestigious financial houses in Europe. Wassermann worked on commission and the more money he could raise, the greater his earnings. The start-up costs to develop the northern coal fields would demand far greater investment capital. Wasserman, always mindful of his commission fees, was adamant and determined to develop the northern coal fields first.

The resulting decision by this ambitious European fund-raiser was to have an enormous impact on future Alberta settlement, and accompanying economic, social and environmental policy that defines west-central Alberta and Kananaskis Country even today. The immediate consequence, however, was that Kananaskis coal field was left undeveloped for nearly four decades. Martin Cohn, already deeply attached to the beauty and potential of the Canadian Rockies, soon changed his last name to Nordegg, the name of the town built to service the northern coal fields, which by 1909 was under the ownership of Toronto-based Brazeau Collieries. Although Nordegg's German background led to his downfall from the coal mining industry during the First World War, the mine and town he spearheaded became one of the most dynamic and innovative coal mining communities in western Canada.

In the late 1940s, Brazeau Collieries, which also assumed control of the Kananaskis coal field in 1909, decided to develop the Ribbon Creek area to capitalize on the opportunities in the Ontario anthracite coal market and the popularity of fuel briquettes, already a successful venture at Nordegg.

A strip mine was opened on the lower south-eastern slopes of Mount Allan in 1947, followed by an underground mine the next year. Plans were immediately in place to build a permanent townsite but a temporary locality was quickly put in place at the bottom of the mountain for nearly 150 miners and their families. The settlement was never incorporated as a town and was classed only as a village or hamlet, listed officially as Kovach in the Gazetteer of Canada.

Although the settlement's inhabitants knew district ranger Joe Kovach well, most simply referred to their tiny mountain community as "Ribbon Crick" or the "camp."

"We didn't know who this guy Kovach was. We always referred to the place as Ribbon Crick," said Zupido D'Amico, mine manager from 1950 to 1952.

The Ribbon Creek mine's importance to the overall company operations took an even greater leap in 1950 when the Nordegg mine suffered a devastating fire in 1950, closing mine operations for nearly 18 months.

Desperate to secure some revenues, the company increased its operations at the Kananaskis wilderness mine site and dispatched dozens its best out-of-work Nordegg miners, including D'Amico.

"It was a nice place, although there was not much in the way of amenities," says D'Amico, who was joined by his wife and two children. "I was the boss and I had a good crew of miners."

The townsite's temporary location was close to the mining operational centre. As a result, living conditions were Spartan. Given the remote, albeit spectacular, setting and the total lack of modern-day services available elsewhere, it was for many of the residents a throw back to pioneer times.

"But nobody complained. There was a lot of elk and deer. Sometimes we fished, and there was berry picking in the summer," recalls D'Amico.

The company built a bunkhouse for the single men. There was also a dozen tar paper shacks used by families as well as half a dozen prefabricated two-bedroom homes for senior mine officials, including D'Amico. Electricity was supplied through transformers located along Calgary Power lines which passed by the townsite. However, there was no water or sewage system. Residents got their water from a spring behind the mine office or from Ribbon Creek.

There was a small store with limited supplies but the main shopping items were purchased 32 kilometers north-west in Seebe. Grocery orders were compiled and once a week supplies were delivered to the village.

A doctor visited the village once a week but there was a qualified resident nurse at the townsite, the wife of a miner. In case of an emergency, an ambulance was on site to take an injured or sick person to hospital in Canmore. For the first three years of the village's life, children went to school in Seebe, but by 1951 a small school was built in the general area of the present youth hostel to accommodate 26 children from grades one to eight.

In the beginning, the mine's operational methods were also of pioneer vintage, using horses to transport men and equipment. But eventually the underground mine, working two eight-hour shifts and using a traditional room and pillar system, became fully mechanized, with electricity supplied by Calgary Power, and the implementation of coal-cutting machines, duckbill loaders, shaker conveyors and belt conveyors.

The coal was then transported by a fleet trucks 35 kilometers north to Morley Flats at Ozada, a CPR station on the Stoney Indian Reservation. The coal was used to make briquettes at the Ozada operation, equipped with a tipple and two briquette units. Up to 50 men and their families worked and lived at the site.

But the decision four decades earlier not to finance the Kananaskis operation, which would have included a rail line to the site, came back to haunt the company: it was just too unprofitable to haul the coal by truck from the mine to Ozada.

As well, eastern market outlets were dwindling, freight rates to the central Ontario market increased and briquettes proved difficult to sell.

In February, 1952, two months after Nordegg's mine resumed operations following its devastating fire, the last coal was mined in Kananaskis.

"We were laying out the permanent townsite and the bottom fell out of the coal market. I was sorry to see it closed," says D'Amico.
The miners and families at Kovach and Ozada scattered to other Alberta coal mining communities, some back to Nordegg while others went to either Canmore or the Crowsnest Pass.

Most of the equipment and some of the buildings followed them but many Ribbon Creek buildings stood silent and vacant until 1969 when they were demolished.

By 1976, the provincial government created Kananaskis Provincial Park and Kananaskis Country and future coal mining was prohibited. Over the next quarter century, the Rocky Mountain wilderness was often the centre of heated debate over provincial government management policy. Environmentalists became concerned with the escalating tourism traffic, especially in the former Ribbon Creek village area where construction began in 1986 for Kananaskis Village, a leisure and recreational complex ultimately including two hotels, a day lodge and two golf courses. At the same time, the Nakiska ski hill was built for the 1988 Winter Olympics.

However, by 2000, the provincial government, facing growing public opposition to further recreational growth, prohibited all future development in Kananaskis Country. While the magnificent outdoor recreational park is still immensely popular, there is greater public confidence the environmental and historical integrity of the spectacular alpine wilderness will be preserved for generations to come.

Johnnie Bachusky is a freelance Canmore writer and photographer who for the past two years has travelled throughout western Canada exploring and documenting ghost towns. He is committed to heritage preservation and has launched Ghost Towns of Western Canada and co-launched the Ghost Towns of Alberta web site with Ontario web designer Susan Foster. He is currently co-constructing Saskatchewan and B.C. sites. He has written several magazine articles, and contributed and exhibited scores of photographs depicting Western Canada's pioneer history.

B&W photos courtesy and copyright © The Centennial Museum Society of Canmore.
Colour photos courtesy and copyright © Ghost Towns of Western Canada