Park wardens kept busy on Canada Day

Some Canucks celebrated the nation’s birthday last week by getting lost or injured on trails in the park and keeping the wardens on their toes.

Parks Canada had a busy day as they started receiving calls the evening of June 30 through July 1 about missing employees, a hiker with a broken leg and a flipped kayak.

Warden Rupert Wedgwood said around 10 p.m. on June 30 a supervisor from Sunwapta Bungalows called to report two of its employees had gone for a hike to Maligne Lake and were late getting back for work.

Because the weather was fair, Parks held off its search until the next morning when they positioned wardens at trailheads and found the missing men’s tracks in the snow going over the Endless Chain Ridge.

“They had totally underestimated the length of the trip and hadn’t anticipated how high the river was,” Wedgwood said. Wardens intercepted the uninjured men, 19 and 21, at a trailhead and took them back to town.

Later that day on July 1 at about 1:30 p.m. Parks got a call about a rock climber who fell and broke her leg near Disaster Point. The 28-year-old Edmonton woman was lifted out by helicopter and taken to hospital.

“We flew in and as luck would have it we could land not too far away,” Wedgwood said. “What’s also lucky is that in spite of a reduced staff for the stat holiday that we had enough people to participate in the parade and also pull off the rescue.”

At the end of the day, guests at Pine Bungalows called to report a flipped kayak floating down the river at the junction of the Miette and Athabasca.

Very shortly after the wardens arrived they found that the man who had fallen out had swam to shore, so they retrieved his kayak and returned it to him.

Wedgwood said hikers should learn from the young men from Sunwapta who were missing overnight, as rain and warm temperatures this time of year cause rivers to swell and pose a significant risk to back-country travelers.

“The take-home message for the lads at the bungalows: you really need to have good trip planning, take a map and give yourself plenty of time,” he said.