Darryl Bossert first tried to start his adventure business in 1992. Finally, last summer his zipline ride and hang gliding lessons were open to the public, but the born and raised Jasper man has had a never-ending battle with the provincial government.

The air-sport enthusiast has been trying to open up the corridor along Highway 16 and surrounding area, not only for himself, but to other local businesses, to make it more attractive for people who are already coming through, but have no choice but to stay in Jasper or go straight to BC.

Now that he has his business up and running, he’s got what inspectors are telling him is a second-to none zip line system that soon all zipline tours in North America will have to, but it’s still a two-steps-forward, one-step-back battle.

The land Bossert has his zipline and campground on is crown land, for which he has a long-term lease. For that reason, the bank won’t give him any financing, which is part of the reason it has taken him since 1992 to get his dream project set up.

Because of the possibility of the government re-claiming the land, it’s difficult to receive financing – but that is only one of his problems.

“They just make everything difficult,” he said. “They make you deal with the local level of bureaucracy,” which he says has continuously told him he won’t be able to succeed.

Bossert said he’s trying to diversify what the area has to offer, and bring some development to an area that people from all around the world want to visit, but there is nothing to offer them.

“It is our right, it’s in the spirit and intent of the agreement with the Forest and Management Agreement, the FMA holder, that we can access public lands for economic diversification. They’ve got to entertain the application,” he said.

He wants people to stand up and voice their ideas and opinions, and stand up to the government.

“We need to stand up as individuals and say this is our province, we elect you to do what we want, not what you decide. It’s not a dictatorship, we’ve got to be vocal, we need to stand up and say no, this isn’t right.”

“We do want the corridor developed, there is potential here. We don’t want people driving right through. We bottle neck them at the Park gates anyways. Why are we trying to high tail them right through just to bottleneck them at the Park gates, just to cause the kind of accidents that happened,” said Bossert, referring to the fatal accident on Highway 16 on August 5 in JNP.

Bossert thinks there are accidents like that just waiting to happen, and that the government could take some of the pressure off the highway if they had more things for people to do outside of the park, rather than sending them in masses straight through.

He doesn’t want to take away business from the national parks – he says every day people come there and then go back to the park. ‘We bring the market to this area, and they go back to Jasper, we don’t hurt Jasper, and I think Hinton benefits from it too.”

What Bossert wants is to keep the momentum going from Jasper, open up the corridor for development and give the people what they want – more variety.

“We want to increase the facility, the whole infrastructure that this area has – if we had more to offer here, we’d get a wider variety of market, we’d get a bigger market. That’s what it’s all about. If all you cater to are busloads of 40 people who are 75 years old, you don’t need much. But if you want the market that’s going to be zip lining, the techies that are out there, the affluent market that are out there, the baby boomers, you’ve got to give them something that they wan to do. Zip lining is the big thing now, and we’ve got the best one in the world,” Bossert said.

For now, he would be happy if the government could build, or agree for someone to build something more permanent that would help the bank realize these businesses are here to stay. Condos, some other businesses, or simply even a permanent bathroom, anything, he says.

For now, he’ll have to continue the slow process and play by the rules, waiting for the another person to come by and question the wood pile he’s been saving to build picnic tables.