Cypress Hills officials excited to see province invest in the park

Provincial funding announced last week is earmarked for infrastructure projects on Alberta’s side of the Cypress Hills.

“We’re very excited to see this much new funding coming into the park,” said Jarrid Jenkins, area manager for Cypress Hills Provincial Park Alberta, on the $3.39 million allocated for upgrades to various parts of the local destination spot.

The upgrades will help the park keep pace with the increased visitation it has seen trending upwards in past years, Jenkins said — and the larger crowds expected this year as well, as people head out to parks for Canada’s 150th, a lower dollar bringing in more American tourists, and Albertans taking staycations due to the dip in the economy.

One of the projects is reconstructing and repaving the Ferguson Hill road in the town site — something those living within the area are excited about.

“Just because of the soil that’s there, we have lots of slumping and so on, and what we’ve been doing in the past is just patching things, reconstructing and paving,” said Jenkins.

The second is a twophased project to replace the boardwalk that runs along the edge of the lake. Each phase is expected to cost $1 million.

Another $600,000 is tied into trail redevelopment.

“We’re right on the edge of starting up public consultations to look at enhanced trail development,” said Jenkins, specifically for mountain biking, cross-country skiing and equestrian trails. There have been an increasing number of people using the park for these sorts of activities, he said.

Another $600,000 is earmarked to expand the rental building at the ski hill, and make the ski hill’s maintenance garage bigger.

Projects hinge on getting approval for environmental assessment — but most will take place in already impacted and developed zones.

Where there’s the potential to impact untouched ground, Jenkins said there will be a heritage resource inventory and environmental assessment. The heritage resource will look to see if artifacts in areas come up, such as from settlers or First Nations, while the environmental evaluation will look at things like if there’s rare plant communities that a trail may go through.

One of the more complicated permits needed is for replacing the old board walk — because it’s on water, they have to have approval under the Water Act.

Jenkins says this is one of the reasons the project will be done in the winter, to minimize the impact on the environment.