The Alberta government is doing something that could reshape how millions of people experience the Canadian Rockies for the next several decades. A sub-regional planning process is now underway for roughly 7,000 square kilometres of Ghost-Kananaskis country.
The Ghost-Kananaskis plan covers one of the most heavily used and ecologically significant landscapes in the province, with more than five million visitors each year. It also supplies drinking water to much of southern Alberta, supports important wildlife habitat and movement corridors, and sits directly beside Banff National Park – Alberta's Eiffel Tower, according to one conservation advocate who clearly knows his audience.
A Plan That's Been a Long Time Coming
Kananaskis Country was officially dedicated in 1978 under Premier Peter Lougheed as a multi-use mountain landscape, with recreation, watershed protection and conservation balanced alongside activities such as grazing and resource use. Ghost and Kananaskis are already covered by older integrated resource plans and related policies, but Alberta says many of those tools are now outdated and need to be streamlined through a modern sub-regional plan.
Environment Minister Grant Hunter told a standing committee in March that Alberta wants to move faster on outstanding land-use plans, with a goal of completing them over the next two years. For Ghost-Kananaskis, a second engagement phase is expected later in 2026.
The People Who've Been Here Before
NDP MLA Sarah Elmeligi represents Banff-Kananaskis and is a former Alberta Parks planner who worked in this exact region. She's concerned about a rush to meet deadlines at the expense of thorough public consultation and proper First Nations engagement – both of which, she notes, take time to do properly.
Trevor Julian of Friends of Kananaskis Country is more straightforwardly hopeful. Visitation will keep rising, he says, and the region needs a plan that can manage growing demand while preserving what makes it worth visiting in the first place.
What's at Stake Beyond the Car Parks
Adam Linnard of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative notes that Ghost-Kananaskis sits within a wildlife corridor stretching from Yellowstone to the Yukon – a landscape-scale system that depends on protected areas remaining connected. He pointed to recent provincial park boundary changes linked to all-season resort development as a warning that protections many people assume are fixed can, in practice, be changed.
“These are things people understood to be firm and non-negotiable,” he said. Worth knowing before the next round of consultation closes.
How to Have Your Say
The first phase of public consultation is open until 5 June 2026, with a second phase to follow later in the year. If you use Ghost-Kananaskis – for hiking, paddling, camping, or simply passing through – this is the plan that will govern how that landscape is managed for the foreseeable future.
Alberta's draft vision frames the plan as one meant to keep the region wild, beautiful and accessible for generations to come. Given how long the last round of consultations sat in a drawer, it might be worth making sure this one doesn't.