Christopher Armstrong
This engaging book explores how the need for electricity at the turn of the century affected and shaped Banff National Park. Todayâ€™s conservationists and energy researchers will find much to think about in this tale of Albertaâ€™s early need for electricity, entrepreneurial greed, debates over aboriginal ownership of the river, moving park boundaries to accommodate hydro-electric initiatives, the importance of water for tourism, rural electrification, and the ultimate diversion to coal-produced electricity.Â Â Â Â Â Â  It is also a lively national story, involving the irrepressible and impetuous Max Aitkin (later Lord Beaverbrook), R.B. Bennett (local legal advisor and later prime minister), and a series of local politicians and bureaucrats whose contributions confuse and conflate issues along the way.
Wilderness and Waterpower: How Banff National Park Became a Hydro-Electric Storage Reservoir