New rules stir debate among rafters

Outside of losing the Maligne River to courting Harlequin ducks, there is probably no topic more controversial among Jasper’s river rafting companies than the rules governing the safety of their clients.

For  most of the last 40 years, Jasper rafting companies have set their own standards and written their own rules. That changed April 30 when new regulations drafted by Transport Canada came into force. 

“There is a large battle happening between dollars and client numbers vs. safety and an experience,” Raven Adventures warns on its website.

The “battle” is between Raven and four other rafting companies in the Jasper National Park River Outfitters Association, the body that oversees commercial rafting in the park and registers river guides when they’ve completed training.

Steve Cordiero, river manager for Raven Adventures, a young and relative newcomer to the rafting business in Jasper, contends that the new federal rules  “actually dropped standards. It just gets more people out there in unsafe situations.”

“We believe everyone should have swift water rescue on any moving water and wilderness first aid,” says Cardiero. “We’re trying to raise the bar a little higher, but not too high. Our biggest issue is safety. That comes before a good time.”

According to the new rules, certification for a river guide “requires only basic CPR. You can almost learn that in front of the TV. If you’ve never touched the water before, you can be a raft guide. You need just five trips down the river to qualify for a license.”

The result, says Cardiero, is guides with skills tuned to one stretch of water, with little that would equip them for a life-or-death emergency on the swift-flowing glacial waters of  Jasper National Park rivers. 

Those concerns were conveyed to Transport Canada, says Cardiero, “but we’ve heard nothing. It seems like the concerns were babied down, swept under the table.” 

Ron Steers, president of Jasper National Park River Outfitters Association, says that Raven and Cordiero are over-stating the risk run by rafting clients. The rivers that Parks Canada allows rafting on are class three or less – not the more turbulent and dangerous class four water.

“Raven has this notion that all clients should be wearing wetsuits – even in class one water,” says Steers, who compares the large raft outings on the lower reaches of the Athabasca River to a ride on a bus. 

“Whitewater rescue skills are not required of everyone,” says Steers. “I’ve gone through the course, and I know what’s involved.  I’m not saying ‘don’t get the training,’ people should improve themselves as much as they can. Those skills just aren’t needed on every raft trip.”

Raven specializes in whitewater trips and for those, all Jasper rafting companies offer park-licensed guides, wet suits, life jackets, neoprene booties, and crash helmets. The warnings given before the start of each trip are boilerplate: if you fall over you will be pulled in with a paddle or a line, never attempt to stand in moving water.

Rafting in swift-moving, glacier-fed water is inherently dangerous. Every time someone falls from a raft, the company is required to file an incident report with the Association. Steers points with pride to the safety record: “in half a million trips, there are fewer than 100 incident reports, and not a single life lost.

“Our safety record is without peer,” he says. “People fall out, but they are recovered. I had one year where seven people out of a thousand fell out, but they were back in within 10 seconds.”

Jasper Raft Tours markets its float trip as an adventure suitable for toddlers and grandparents and boasts on its website that it has carried “disabled people, ninety-seven year olds, people with oxygen tanks, people in wheel chairs, pregnant women, you name it!”

The company carries thousands of clients every year. Owner Scott Eady wouldn’t comment on the new federal regulations, but compares those who want to do better to a Swedish car company that boasts that its vehicles exceed safety standards.

“If you want to be like Volvo and exceed the standards, that’s great,” he says, and stresses that the rules governing the industry in Jasper National Park have served it well for the last 37 years.

The only rafting fatality in Alberta in recent memory was in 1999 on the Sulphur River, near Grande Cache, and outside the park boundaries. The Transportation Safety Board found that rafting company was not a member of any rafting association and that its guides were self-trained. 

The victim was wearing a personal flotation device – not a life jacket designed to keep an unconscious person’s face out of the water.  The Class V life jackets with a small pillow on the back are standard equipment for Jasper companies operating on more dangerous class three white water.

The new federal regulations allow rafting companies to continue to use personal flotation devices until 2012 – evidence in Cordiero’s view that the big companies are being allowed to drag their feet on a key safety issue.

It’s not that simple, Eady says. Although all clients taking trips on class three water are equipped with Class V life jackets, the equipment is not quickly available in large quantities. Within two years, all clients riding his rafts on the quiet reaches of the Athabasca will be wearing them.