Avalanche Canada spreads message to new backcountry users

Date

Friday, November 22, 2019

Credit

Marko Stavric

Avalanche Canada’s efforts to reach new winter backcountry users took a significant leap forward this year, with several new and successful outreach presentations, along with the launch of a new page on our website.

More than 750 people attended presentations at the University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, and in North Vancouver in early November. This outreach was aimed primarily at new winter backcountry recreationists, who often have no knowledge of avalanches.

“We are seeing increasing numbers of people, often snowshoers, using summer trails in the winter,” said Nancy Geismar, Avalanche Canada’s education and outreach coordinator. “Many of these users are unaware of the avalanche danger in these situations. We felt it important to connect with them and provide some guidelines on how to identify and avoid avalanche terrain.”

Snowshoers are the main target of these efforts, as are new Canadians. There have been several high-profile fatal avalanche incidents involving snowshoers since 2017, including six deaths in the North Shore Mountains outside Vancouver and three in the Canadian Rockies. There has also been a rise in near-misses.

Avalanche Canada’s efforts began with the publication of the Heads Up brochure, which provides basic avalanche safety messaging and was translated into French, German, Punjabi, Korean, Japanese, Mandarian, and Cantonese.

This fall we upped our efforts with these presentations. In Calgary, about 250 people came out to hear from Grant Helgeson, a senior forecaster with Avalanche Canada, Mike Koppang, a visitor safety specialist from K-Country, and Andrew Nugara, the author of A Beginner’s Guide to Snowshoeing in the Canadian Rockies.

Credit

Richard Keltie

In Vancouver, attendees saw presentations by Mark Bender, a senior forecaster with Avalanche Canada, Andre-Jean Maheu, a forecaster for North Shore Rescue, Sandra Riches from AdventureSmart BC, and snowshoe guide Brent Loewen. More than 400 people came out to the two events there, most of whom were snowshoers.

“We are very happy to see the engagement from this community,” said Geismar. “We hope they came away with a new respect for the mountains that will allow them to enjoy winter safely.”

In addition to these outreach events, Avalanche Canada also created a new page on the “Learn” section of its website aimed at people who are “Fresh to the backcountry.” This new page is set up to quickly and simply introduce people to basic concepts such as identifying avalanche terrain, identifying weather conditions that lead to increased avalanche hazard, and understanding the forecast.