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The Great Divide Trail The highest point on the GDT is an unnamed pass at 2590 m. The lowest point on the whole route is 1055 m at the Old Fort Point trailhead on the bank of the Athabasca River in Jasper—a difference of 1535 m from the highest point on the route. The GDT passes through a number of protected areas, including six national parks: Glacier (USA), Waterton Lakes, Banff, Kootenay, Yoho and Jasper. The GDT also passes through seven provincial parks: Akamina-Kishinena, Elk Lakes, Peter Lougheed, Height of the Rockies, Mount Assiniboine, Mount Robson and Kakwa Lake. The route also includes the Beehive Natural Area, Kananaskis Country, the White Goat Wilderness and the Willmore Wilderness Area. The five forest districts through which the GDT passes are the Castle, Bow/Crow, Cranbrook, Golden and Robson Valley. A brief history of the GDT The Great Divide Trail has a disproportionately long history compared to the amount of trail built in its name. Today it remains an unmarked route despite public support and government approval for an official trail. Lack of signage notwithstanding, the GDT is the grand path of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and inspires hikers to trace its heights. The GDT started as a youthful and courageous idea. The first record of the Great Divide Trail appears in the minutes of the national park’s standing committee meetings in Banff and Jasper in 1966. The Girl Guides of Canada proposed the idea of a trail running the length of the British Columbia and Alberta border through the Rocky Mountains. In the two years following the Girl Guides’ proposal, other public support for the Great Divide Trail grew. The first formal proposal landed in the western regional office of the national park service in May 1967. A local architect and mountaineer named Philip DeLasalle saw the GDT as a route that would provide backcountry access for all park users. He focused on the Divide between Kananaskis Lakes and Yoho Valley, which he believed already had an excellent trail system. In his proposal to the national park service, DeLasalle wrote, “This area...should be made more accessible to all the visitors who wish to walk away from the car parks and enter into closer contact with nature.” Despite DeLasalle’s proposal, the GDT simply remained an idea until a Banff local named Jim Thorsell took the first steps to have it established. A research consultant for the national park service, Thorsell led a trail-use survey in 1967. After administering the survey, Thorsell believed the Great Divide Trail could become the trunk trail of the national parks, accessing the backcountry and linking many of the existing trails of the time. He and his crew completed the first round of feasibility studies, noting trail conditions, taking photos, cataloguing natural features and detecting possible use conflicts within the national parks. With still no response from the national park service, Thorsell prepared the “Provisional Trail Guide and Map for the Proposed Great Divide Trail” in 1970. Produced for the National and Provincial Parks Association of Canada, this pamphlet was the first guide ever prepared for the GDT. In it, Thorsell clearly described the route extending out of the national parks, south to the international boundary in order to link with the proposed Continental Divide Trail in the USA. The GDT received federal approval shortly after the release of Thorsell’s Provisional Trail Guide and Map. Jean Chrétien, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, issued a communiqué endorsing the proposed Great Divide Trail. Chretien stated that the national park service would undertake the project with the objective of completing it by 1975. In response to the minister’s communiqué, Parks Canada formed the Great Divide Trail Committee to steer implementation of the trail. The committee consisted of the National and Provincial Parks Association of Canada (NPPAC), the Canadian Youth Hostel Association, the Bow Valley section of the Alpine Club of Canada and Parks Canada planners. In 1971 and 1972 the committee contracted the Canadian Wildlife Service to study the feasibility of the GDT in Banff, Jasper and Yoho national parks. These studies generated several recommendations, most of which concerned rerouting the GDT away from high use areas such as Lake O’Hara. In 1973 the committee issued a status report defining the criteria for development of the GDT. The report recommended unobtrusive campgrounds, a trail quota system, separation of horse and hiker trails, routing the GDT away from high use areas and discouraging day use of the GDT. However, five years after Chretien’s directive to establish the GDT, the concept of the trail had not moved out of the planning stage. Outside the framework of Parks Canada, the GDT gained provincial support in Alberta. Based on support from the Alberta Wilderness Association and public interest in the GDT, the Alberta Environment Conservation Authority recommended developing a system of trails along the Great Divide as early as 1973. This opened the way for an advocacy group to establish the GDT south of Banff National Park. In the summer of 1974, having received a Federal Opportunities for Youth grant, six young and enthusiastic people set out to explore possible routes for the Great Divide Trail outside the national parks. They covered an estimated 4800 km on foot, taking inventory of existing trails and types of land use in the area between the U.S. border and Banff National Park. Barely pausing to catch their breath, the team went on to compile their notes and recommendations in a report called "Project: Great Divide Trails." Following the completion of the report, this dedicated group founded the Great Divide Trail Association (GDTA). The association aimed to implement the GDT as an equestrian and hiking trail based on the provisional route that arose out of the original group’s efforts. While momentum for the GDT grew outside the national parks, enthusiasm within the parks waned owing to concerns about over-use. To finalize the criteria for the development of the GDT, Parks Canada ran a special field study in Yoho National Park in 1974. In 1975, Parks Canada stalled in its planning process citing a lack of adequate trail planning methodology. In 1976, in conjunction with the Great Divide Trail Committee, a graduate student at the University of Calgary completed a doctoral study of the GDT. Bart Deeg, a student of the faculty of environmental design, titled his work “A Proposal for a Trail Planning Methodology: A Case Study—the Great Divide Trail.” The proposal addressed the issue of overuse on backcountry trails in the national parks and strongly encouraged Parks Canada to complete the GDT by providing the very methodology that was lacking. However, the issues surrounding overuse remained unresolved and Parks Canada has yet to officially endorse the route. The Great Divide Trail Association carried the vision of the route much farther than Parks Canada. The GDTA began trail construction in summer, 1976. Funded by both the private and public sectors, the work continued for the next decade with the support of the Alberta government. Each year the GDTA hired up to three people for the trail crew and organized volunteers to help. According to Jenny Feick and Dave Higgins, two of the original six people to survey the GDT, provincial support for the trail waned when political tides shifted in the mid 1980s. Lacking provincial support, the GDTA had difficulty motivating a volunteer work force to invest their time and energy in a trail that might not exist the following year. By 1987, the association that initiated, built and cared for the only segments of the Great Divide Trail ever established, disbanded. After Parks Canada gave up the idea and after the GDTA faded from existence, the concept of the GDT sank into a low public profile. Although some had heard about the Great Divide Trail, few could say for certain whether it existed. However, the GDT is more than a myth to the few who hiked a substantial portion of the route. |
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