Parks Canada marked Glacier National Park’s 125th anniversary with a Sept. 10 ceremony at Rogers Pass featuring a big military display and speeches from politicians, military leaders and local dignitaries.
The Edmonton-based Royal Canadian Artillery Band showed their diversity and talent as they anchored the proceedings with a wide variety of musical numbers, ranging from full orchestra pieces, regional tunes and a vocalist accompanied by an acoustic guitar.
The ceremony culminated in a a performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with accompaniment by six artillery pieces from the Royal Canadian Artillery, who blasted away through the composition, leading to a dramatic crescendo involving all six artillery pieces.
The event celebrated the 125th anniversary of Glacier National Park, but also the 50th anniversary of Operation Palaci, the avalanche control program operated in the Pass by the Canadian Forces in conjunction with Parks Canada.
Lieutenant-General Walter Semianiw was one of many dignitaries to address the crowd. “What today is known as Operation Palaci not only saves lives – it contributes to the economic and well being of the nation,” he said in a statement. “Without the support of the Canadian Forces, commercial traffic, vehicles and trains would struggle to get through. The economic effect of keeping the vital thoroughfare from Vancouver to Calgary open is estimated in billions of dollars. An extended traffic delay could destabilize the entire region.”
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Now on permanent display at the Rogers Pass Discovery Centre are three newly-retired C1 Howitzers that had been used in Operation Palaci. They have been replaced with newer, more accurate and longer-ranged C3 Howitzers, which were tested out in the Pass last winter, and will go into full service this snow season.
The formal event lasted for several hours and featured many speeches.
“Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors to British Columbia’s mountain national parks and millions of through-traffic vehicles are able to travel the Trans-Canada Highway safely thanks to Parks Canada and the Canadian Forces,” said Kootenay-Columbia MP David Wilks in a statement. “For 50 years, this team has kept Canadians safe.”
Mr. Robert Sandford delivered a memorable historical address. “I think you can always tell a great deal about a nation by the way it celebrates its history,” he said. “In the American images of the driving of the last spike … in 1869, you see two locomotives nose-to-nose. An engineer on one smokestack pouring champagne into the glass of another on the adjacent train. And in the foreground, dignified railway executives are shaking hands, while in the background hundreds of drunken railway workers are raising hell.
“Now if you compare that to the one of the driving of the (CPR) Last Spike … in November of 1889 … You’ll notice I’m sure that no one in that picture is even smiling. I’ve always suspected that they’re not smiling because they realized they made a terrible mistake. What they’d done is they’d put the railway in the wrong place. And that place was here,” he joked. He continued to describe the geographical challenges created by the Rogers Pass since then, and how it had helped define the nation of Canada and the Canadian mountaineering spirit since then.
The event also marked the official grand opening of the newly-renovated Rogers Pass Discovery Centre. The building features new displays and a renovated interior.
The Revelstoke Times Review will post photo galleries and videos from the event at www.revelstoketimesreview.com. The video of the artillery display is a must-see.
