LAKE LOUISE – The next steps in recognizing a historic alpine hut have launched with recommendations anticipated to be implemented in the coming months and years.
Parks Canada released a What We Heard report with recommendations on preserving the lengthy history of one of Canada’s most well-known alpine huts – the Abbot Pass Hut – that was forced to be dismantled in 2022 due to impacts of climate change.
“What we learned is this place is very important to many people. It’s not just about the architecture of the building, but it really has a social and cultural connection as a place of connection for the mountain community,” said François Masse, superintendent of the Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay field unit.
Recommendations on how to remember the hut ranged from collecting its history to making it available to the public, creating interpretive content and activities related to the cabin, exploring having a physical representation of the hut and recognizing it nationally on a coin or stamp, for example.
Among specific ideas were a travelling museum and/or school exhibit, an interpretive display at the Plain of Six Glaciers, a website about the hut and an interpretive theatrical performance.
At the hut’s former location, a piece of the foundation, the steps to get to the former building and the bronze plaque will remain for anyone still travelling to the site.
During a lengthy engagement period, Masse said Parks Canada looked to answer two key questions on the hut: how best to commemorate the hut and why was it important for people to remember it?
Masse said Parks Canada will be implementing the majority of the working group’s recommendations on recognizing the hut’s century of existence after hearing its importance to Canadians, particularly in the mountaineering community.
He said the public engagement highlighted the hut as a “key beacon of the birth of mountaineering in the Rockies” and the unique building as “very iconic and very recognizable.”
“What we heard is that the hut was very practical in supporting backcountry access. It’s a very important way to be able to access those very iconic mountaineering routes,” Masse said. “It’s a very inhospitable environment, so it played a role there. It’s intertwined with the historical significance of those routes and enabling access to those routes.”
Keith Haberl, director of communications and marketing for the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC), said the history surrounding the hut is important to remember.
“It was a very special place. It’s remembered that way and it’s important to people,” he said.
“It felt like history. It felt like that to all the people who had used it whether it was last week, last summer or many, many generations earlier. It was impossible to go there and not feel that or notice it. Everyone who went there loved it.”
Masse noted there is no hard deadline for recommendations to be implemented, with the focus on memorializing the area the main goal.
“We really want to do it right. We’re going to move at the pace where we’re going to be able to do a good job. … We want to take the time it takes to do it right to honour the memory of the place and make sure we’re connecting with the people that are very passionate about that place,” he said.
Public engagement process
Parks Canada began a public engagement process in 2023 on how best to remember the historic cabin.
The first phase looked to learn from Canadians why the heritage site mattered to them and the second phase asked organizations the best way to remember the site.
There were 281 people who responded to the first phase, with 70 per cent having visited the hut at least once. The second phase had organizations such as the ACC, Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG), Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse and Banff Lake Louise Tourism take part.
Masse noted the amount of engagement was “quite significant” for a high alpine hut, highlighting its importance for many people.
“One thing that perhaps surprised us a little bit is how important the social and cultural significance of that place as a way to connect for the mountain community and as a site for many rites of passage and significant life experience for those who visited there,” he said.
The feedback resulted in the hut’s location maintaining its national historic site designation as recommended by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
In feedback from the public, Parks Canada found the site was considered by many to be the birthplace of Canadian mountaineering, a key shelter for those travelling in the area, a place of connection and a symbol of adventure.
“They felt the connection to the place was so strong that it would have an enduring importance even if the building is gone,” Masse said.
Hut forced to be removed
The instability of the slope where the cabin rested was noticed in 2016 and the decision was made to remove the building for public safety reasons. Though the cabin was structurally sound at the time, the eroding slope was ultimately too much for it to remain.
In 2018, Parks Canada invested $600,000 into rock stabilization work such as rock anchors, but weather conditions halted work in 2019. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic also prevented additional work.
Slope erosion and glacial recession from climate change led to 114 cubic metres of material falling off the slope in 2021. Geotechnical surveys in the same year determined there was no feasible option to preserve the structure at its historic location.
The main contributing factor for its removal was due to climate change. When the cabin was built, the southeast slope was covered by permanent snow and ice, but had receded and became exposed.
Haberl said it was important to recognize the efforts Parks Canada did in attempting to save the building.
“I love that they care that much. … They did so much to try and save it and now they’re working to memorialize it.”
He added it is equally vital to remember the reason it was removed was due to climate change.
“They never imagined the glaciers would go away,” he said of the Swiss guides who built it a century ago. “The ground was solid they built on, but it eroded and that’s what we have to deal with. … The demise of the hut is this really hard tangible example of the consequences of global warming. If we forget and don’t memorialize and remember it, we lose that lesson on why it had to be removed.”
Tangiers Mountain Construction began work to dismantle and remove the hut in 2022, which featured numerous challenges such as machinery freezing up, engines not starting with lack of air pressure and workers experiencing the high elevation.
When removing the hut, historic aspects such as names inscribed on the walls by Swiss guides who built the cabin, original walking sticks, coins and pieces of wood were found.
Though the hut being removed was a difficult decision, Masse noted the strong sentiment by people and organizations to commemorate it.
“It was very sad for everyone to see the old hut go down and seeing that passion of the alpine community be channelled in a very positive way in how we can commemorate this place, how we can really understand its role in mountain culture was very heartening,” he said.
Lengthy history for Abbot Pass Hut
The cabin was built in 1922 under sponsorship from CP Railway and was the second highest permanently habitable structure in Canada. It was named after Philip Stanley Abbot, who was the first recorded mountaineering fatality in North America, and built by Swiss guides who worked for the Canadian Alpine Association (CAA). Edward Feuz Jr. and Rudolph Aemmer designed the cabin.
It stood 2,926 metres above sea level on the Continental Divide along the border of Banff and Yoho national parks.
Materials for the cabin were brought up by horseback, manpower and winches and CAA operated it for about four decades until Parks Canada took it over in 1968 and leased it to ACC in the 1980s.
Haberl said in the 1970s and 80s it was fixed up by volunteers who hauled more than 100 bags of garbage from the site.
“One hundred years later, it was still as solid as it ever was except the ground underneath it was melting away so it had to be removed,” he said.
The famous cabin was made a national historic site in 1992 and previous upgrades to the roof, drainage and masonry were made between 2012-14.
As a federal heritage site, it “can only be dismantled as a last resort and, if dismantled, the custodian of the building is encouraged to find new ways to communicate its heritage values,” according to the What We Heard report.
Management plan potentially allows new alpine huts
In the 2022 Banff National Park management plan, the door was open for potential new alpine huts.
The plan, which serves as the guiding document for Parks Canada’s premier national park, indicated the development of commercial roofed accommodations in wilderness zones could be examined.
Though long prohibited, the management plan said the federal agency would consider new huts at or above treeline in cases where there are “demonstrable, persistent public safety risks” and if it can be determined there are “no adverse environmental impacts.”
In 2022, a partnership between the ACC, Lake Louise Ski Area and ACMG started working on creating a proposal for Parks Canada to consider.
The process involves a thorough assessment and engagement phase, which heads to Parks Canada to determine if it would move forward.
The potential hut would be limited to house 12-16 people and the intent is to give shelter to mountaineers or climbers accessing the area.
Carine Salvy, the executive director of the ACC, said the group is conducting several studies such as avalanche risk assessment, geotechnical assessment and engineering studies before submitting a development permit.
She said the aim is to submit the permit application early next year, with the earliest a hut built being summer 2027. However, she noted it’s dependent on the permit requirements.
ACC operates many of the alpine huts in national parks such as Bow Hut, Peter and Catharine Whyte Hut, Neil Colgan Hut and Castle Mountain Hut.
Masse said Parks Canada has been briefed twice by the group on progress, noting the biggest challenge will be the environment since it will be difficult to build in the area.
“They’re very dedicated to coming up with a new structure that’s going to be in the same area. … They’re definitely advancing and we’re hopeful that we’re going to be able to work with them toward the actual building to serve the purpose for the climbing community that the Abbot Pass Hut was serving,” he said.
“Parks Canada is very invested in making sure all the applicable regulations are being followed, so we’ll definitely work with them on that. … We’ve had good success in recent years working with the ACC to navigate that without too many delays, so I’m reasonably optimistic that can proceed in a fairly timely basis.”
For Haberl and ACC, the hut and its history remains about the people and sense of connection.
When it was announced the hut would be removed, he said the club put out a call for stories and heard from across the world from people who met there, got engaged at the hut and made multi-generational trips.
“It’s not just the climbing, but the experiences they had. Those are important to people,” he said.
“The Abbot Pass Hut was a massive concentration of those stories. That’s really powerful to the people who were there or the people who can learn from them.”
Timeline:
- 1922: Abbot Pass refuge cabin (Abbot Pass Hut) constructed
- 1968: Dominion Parks Branch (known today as Parks Canada) acquires the hut
- 1973: Abbot Pass refuge cabin is restored
- 1985: Alpine Club of Canada assumes operation of the hut
- 1992: Abbot Pass refuge cabin is designated as a national historic site
- 2003: Exposed historic debris identified and recorded as archaeological site
- 2012: Parks Canada completes roof and drainage upgrades
- 2014: Parks Canada completes stone masonry restoration
- 2016: Initial slope instability reported to Parks Canada
- 2017: Slope stability geotechnical assessment begins
- 2018: Hut closed and initial slope stability work conducted to install rock anchors below the hut
- 2019: Unfavourable weather conditions cause safety concerns at the site, preventing additional slope stability work
- 2020: COVID-19 health measures prevent additional slope stability work from being completed
- 2021: Further slope erosion occurs, impacting the base of the hut
- Area closure expanded to include Abbot Pass and its two approach routes
- Second geotechnical assessment conducted
- Heritage recording completed
- 2022: Abbot Pass hut removed
- 2023: Potential cabin replacement being examined
- 2025: What We Heard report and recommendations released
