When I started to tell people I was getting back into the newspaper gig by starting East Kootenay News Online Weekly (e-KNOW), a few friends asked if I was going to ‘get back into the Jumbo fray.’

Truthfully, I never pondered Jumbo when I formulated plans to start e-KNOW. I’ve been compiling information on it – as much as I have been able to find – the past 20 years and one of these days, should a publisher give me the call, I will write a book about this fascinating and, ultimately, important but divisive issue. Still, like it always was, Jumbo is just one of many issues in our region that needs to be covered by the media.

Yet after only two weeks ‘back’ at it, I found myself, like a mobster trying to escape his life, being dragged back into it – but only because I can’t resist a good scrap.

The Jumbo Glacier Resort issue was my personal ‘stone of Sisyphus’ while employed as editor of The Valley Echo, for 15 weird years from 1994 to 2009. It is the biggest and oldest issue the Columbia Valley community has dealt with, dating back to 1990/91.

I had the fortune of flumping into the valley in 1991 – right when Oberto Oberti began to proclaim his dream of a shining European-style skiing paradise in the Purcells, 55 km west of Invermere.

My initial reaction to his ‘dream’ was ‘cool.’ I liked the idea.

Then the years passed by. Jumbo fell off the radar for a few years and resurfaced with a snarling vengeance in 1995, when Oberto and his team unveiled their first master plan and actively began to lobby and try to win people over.

The initial response to Jumbo, in 1991, wasn’t all that great. Most folks didn’t like the sound of some fancy-pants big city architect trotting into their town with plans to build something akin to the size of the City of Fernie in ‘their’ backcountry.

By 1995, Oberto had won over a small and dedicated band of followers. And on the flip side, the Jumbo Wild coalition began to grow and grow.

And by 1996 I was already sick to death of the bloody issue. By then I had formed a fairly well-researched opinion of the proposed resort and had begun to dislike the plans. No doubt, it was the attempts to get me fired for daring to write columns opposing Jumbo that added some zing to my zeal to be the pro-Jumbo drones’ huckleberry.

Perhaps the biggest reason for the opposition, in fairness to Oberti, was my life and professional experience up to that point had shown me that so many developers are chock-a-block full of poop. I’m not saying he was or is. But I believed then, as I do now, that placing trust in people who dream the big dream at the expense of nature, biodiversity, wilderness, community aesthetics or whatever you wish to hang your view-keys on, is tantamount to believing every fart-smelling word falling from a politician’s or lawyer’s, or journalist’s mouth. It is folly and it is stupid and reckless. Which is why I’ve always believed any decision made on Jumbo should be local – in a Kootenays (East and Central) sense and with approval from First Nations.

Essentially, the Jumbo argument has been like a schoolyard war. On one side is the smug, trying-to-be-intellectually-superior, screaming opponents and on the other side is the smug, trying-to-be-intellectually-superior, screaming supporters. Both sides have spoken truths and both sides have spread savage lies.

One of my clearest observations, from covering this issue for more than 20 years now, and from being, quite frankly, one of the foremost authorities on it by virtue of the weight of time and information digested, is that Jumbo has proceeded on a gastropod’s sheen of bullcrap.

The Environmental Assessment Office process was total guano.

The back and forth volleying of the issue by governments has been nonsensical and precedent-setting.

There has been unbelievable brainwashing of youth or the generally poorly informed associated with both sides of the issue.

Facts and figures have been thrown around by both sides like poop in a zoo monkey house, while credible science has been ignored.

In short, Jumbo remains the high water mark of B.C.’s environmental ethics war. It’s an issue that has formed legislations to deal with other matters, because of the experiences gained by government ministries.

It is an issue that has clearly separated some portions of the region’s population, and still resonates in land use discussions at the regional district board table, including one on July 8.

It’s an issue that drags the snarl out of many people, including myself, and thanks to publishing many opinion pieces on Jumbo (and hundreds of news stories and letters to the editor), I became a part of the bloody issue.

I was even called a liar in the National Post by one of Oberti’s less-talented disciples, because I published the results of an informal poll that showed sweeping opposition to the proposal. Despite the fact I noted in the first three paragraphs of a column on the poll that the process had been hi-jacked by opponents, and asked why the supposed legion of supporters didn’t do the same, Oberti’s hack felt obliged to take a swipe at me, as have other Oberti disciples.

The ‘fight’ has always seemed to be the ‘what’s best for business’ types who came out flailing at me like girly-boys (or boyly girls) in mid snit, shrieking that I was bought out by Wildsight or Jumbo Wild or Roger Madson or whoever was the popular anti-Jumbo person at the time. They always packed such conviction in their voices, like they ‘knew’ something.

They didn’t know squat and if they knew me at all, they would have known that I passionately support business growth and keeping government out of our faces etc. I believe in doing smart business that doesn’t come at a cost to our future generations, or our environment.

I was also attacked by opponents for being ‘bought’ by big business because I’d occasionally write things like it was the government’s fault for making Glacier Resorts go through such a terrible and lengthy process when a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer should have been available immediately, had there been proper backcountry zoning completed after the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) process was completed. Are you listening Victoria? Because you should be.

Alas, some morons and sheep populate both sides of this issue – hence why I have grown to hate it so much. That and because I believe it played a role in killing one of the finest people I’ve ever met and a person who became a great mentor and friend to me, Roger Madson. Roger never stopped wrestling with the Jumbo issue because of his fears of what it would do to his successful RK Heli Ski business. The Liberal government is damned lucky that Roger passed away a number of years ago now because they’d be sick and tired of seeing him in ministerial offices in Victoria by now. Roger would have kicked a few of those ‘closed Victoria doors’ open and would have eventually found support for a successful business being ball kicked and hobbled in favour of a ‘proposal.’

You want another picture of how insane this issue has been, and find a reason to feel a bit sorry for Oberto and company?

How about noting that back in 1991, then-NDP Premier Mike Harcourt allegedly declared, likely while cross-eyed from sweet European indulgences (he was in Europe at the time), that he supported Jumbo. A short while later, he and his trained seals backtracked and denied it.

At any rate, the ruling NDP clearly held some support for the plan as they didn’t shoot it in the head, as the current crop wants to. It wasn’t until (then) Columbia River-Revelstoke MLA Jim Doyle had the stones to stand up and declare his opposition to the proposal, based on his observations on what riding residents thought, that the NDP position began to veer from support. That was in 1996, I believe.

In mid July NDP leader Adrian Dix echoed MLA Norm Macdonald’s constant position and declared opposition to the proposal. What will that mean when and if the NDP take over power?

Clearly, while Gordon Campbell and the Liberals lay in the weeds waiting for the NDP to fray apart, Oberto and company spent much time sitting in the weeds with them. Because when Gordo and company crossed the floor and took power, Jumbo really began to rev up.

Despite overwhelming opposition evidenced in the EA process, numerous polls showing the majority of people opposed the idea, damning scientific evidence, a direct threat to long-time valley business RK Heli-Ski, social concerns never mitigated by the proponents in any of their literature, uncertain future costs that could end up being eaten by B.C. taxpayers (the road to Jumbo), obvious climate change, continuing declines in the ski industry and a slew of other concerns – Campbell’s cabinet gave Jumbo the thumbs up. It seems all they cared about was the ‘jobs’ line in the Jumbo literature, which in itself was total crap. They declared that 800 full-time jobs would be created, when a similar scale resort (Panorama) operates at half that staff, and it features more tourist amenities than Jumbo ever would.

But nowadays, it seems increasingly popular to kick sand in the opponents’ faces, stating they are lying hippy scum and are in the way of progress, blah blah blah. Well, if the valley’s anti-Jumbo folks were so in the way of progress, why in the hell didn’t they stop the out-of-control explosion of second home/condo construction all the while the Jumbo war raged and raged and raged?

Oh the painfully obvious double standards that still exist. Or perhaps Jumbo has been nothing more than a brilliant ruse – a feint, if you will.

The only real bonus Jumbo would bring to the valley would be jobs and its only true bonus to the ski industry would be the fact it would still have some snow left when many other regional ski hills are suffering from continued climate change. That said, in 1995, Jumbo was to be a four-season ski resort. Now it’s a three season resort. What will it be in a few more years as the glaciers continue to melt and rot away?

But those elements were greater than the matters being thrown out by opponents, which, much to the dismay of the ‘nobodies’ supporting Jumbo, included some sexy celebrity types who merely claim they are opposed to abuse of our wilderness paradise, which is a central issue in EVERY community in the East Kootenay, not just the Columbia Valley.

On one side are those who see only economic benefit and on the other are those striving to preserve what we have left of our amazing wilderness, which remains the greatest savings account for our futures in this region, along with our lakes and existing tourism infrastructure.

Tourism is our vitality now. But that doesn’t mean we should proceed blindly and without regard to the core element of what makes our region so unbelievably special. We should be doing right what we have in place now. And in saying that, I also believe we MUST keep our economic eyes on forestry and mining as key driving forces for the future of our economies here. I joyously applaud the work of the Columbia Headwaters Community Forest Project. THAT is building economy in a smart and controlled manner. Oh if only Jumbo could have proceeded in such a fashion.

Had Oberto come forward with a small plan to build a project one-tenth the size of the monstrosity he still proposes, we would not be having these pissing matches. It’d be done. The big bucks from the ‘90s and turn of the century would have been spent on such a project.

Then again, existing ski hills are hurting – big time. Most have run out of the real estate bonus they tacked onto their earnings in the 1990s and at the turn of the century and have done what they can to expand their operations into the four seasons, but numbers don’t lie, even though they can be manipulated masterfully and have been by both sides in this war. Our population is aging and fewer and fewer people have disposable income to blow on ski weekends. Those two things add up to a major headache for the ski industry.

In addition, I must point out, had Oberto and company purchased the Crown land encompassing the Jumbo master plan area, I don’t think that I or many others would have opposed it. It’s their land – if they want to muck it up, let ‘em have at ‘er. But it is OUR land and the handling of this file by our governments, the sorry faffing off of the responsibility of it by barely half the RDEK board, has clearly shown that silly bugger politics still rule the day when big money is promised (though rarely delivered).

I believe Jumbo will never see the light of day because, as I have been crowing for years now, there is no money available for Oberto and company to tap into to make this happen. If there were, we would not be arguing about this issue because phase one would be underway. In the fat gravy days of the mid 1990s, when Glacier really hit the highway, Alberta was becoming, as an oil-industry-enriched friend of mine once said, “mini Saudi Arabia.”

This same friend also laughingly pointed out, that if he and his stinking rich pals weren’t interested in throwing dough at the project, then who would be now when the world’s economy is experiencing an ongoing downward Coriolis Effect, hopefully leading to a paradigm shift in how we approach economy and finance?

His answer to his own question: maybe some ‘cocaine-fried sheik.’ His view remains with me because of the frank, blunt truth to it. No one has come forward with a large bag of bones to drop on a table and declared, let there be Jumbo! Had there been such a person or people, then does it not seem likely that this project would be underway by now? It does to me.

I wrote most of this column in a pique back in July, mused along by some public statements on the issue that displayed some unfortunate spatter-marks of proponent literature and influence leaking into what should be well-weighed views.

Not wanting to make people think that this newspaper was going to be a Jumbo rant, I opted to shelve it. But the recent return of the issue to the hallowed thumpity-thump, murmur chamber that is the B.C. Legislature, has inspired me to return to sharing this viewpoint.

Damn it.

Oh Jumbo, how I hate thee. Go away, would you.

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

 

---

Article Share

---