Collaborators

Parks Canada

Parks Canada’s proud history of leadership in avalanche safety for Canadians stretches back for more than fifty years. Highlights include development of the avalanche control programs for the Trans-Canada Highway through Rogers Pass and Kicking Horse Pass, for Highway 93 from Radium to Jasper, and for the Sunshine ski area access road. Parks Canada pioneered avalanche control programs for all national park ski areas, and started Canada’s first public avalanche bulletin service in 1981.

Significant contributions by Parks Canada include:

• Provision of $100,000 annually for CAC operations.
• Collaboration to develop icons and simplified avalanche safety messaging systems for public avalanche awareness in Canada.
• Collaboration to improve and standardize public avalanche bulletins produced by Parks Canada and the CAC.
• Development of improved tools for data exchange, and Parks Canada staff support to upgrade CAC information technology capacity.
• Assistance from communications and risk specialists to develop improved public avalanche safety messaging.
• Development of avalanche terrain rating systems for use by amateur backcountry enthusiasts and professionals.
• Development of guidelines to enhance safety for custodial groups going into the backcountry in winter.
• Assistance to develop avalanche brochures and other avalanche safety information.
• Parks Canada staff participation at public avalanche awareness and education events.
• Parks Canada sponsorship of many NSS – NIF avalanche projects over the past decade, including a current ($717,000 over 3 years) project  to develop a scientifically valid, simple decision guidance framework so that non-professionals can accurately evaluate avalanche risk and make appropriate safety decisions.

Meteorological Service of Canada

For more than two decades the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) has been providing specialized weather forecasts and other assistance to support avalanche safety operations in western Canada. In the past, Vancouver's Pacific Weather Centre and the Mountain Weather Centre in Kelowna have been the primary source of meteorological guidance to the CAA. Since 2004, this role has been turned over to MSC's Pacific and Yukon Storm Prediction Centre, located in Vancouver. In recent years, MSC's forecast centres in Rimouski, PQ, and Montreal have provided similar support in Eastern Canada. Through the years what could be termed a Snow Avalanche Community of Practice has evolved – a group of individuals sharing common vision and purpose working collectively towards a common goal of informing, educating and advising the general public on snow avalanche hazards and awareness.

Significant contributions by Meteorological Service of Canada include:

• Provision of $75 thousand annually to support CAC operations.
• Development of a highly successful weather training program for avalanche professionals, and publication of a comprehensive technical handbook to assist those learners.
• Development and provision of a specialized weather forecast for avalanche safety operations, and expansion of the geographical coverage of that product in winter 2004/05.
• Assistance in developing technical specifications for weather data collection in avalanche operations, and data logger and communications standards.
• Provision of daily personal weather consultations with CAC forecasters preparing public avalanche bulletins.
• Support to avalanche rescue operations by providing real-time weather forecasts for search and rescue managers. 
• Provision of specialized satellite imagery and other model outputs for avalanche forecasting.
• Presentations at Canadian Avalanche Association public and technical meetings, and other workshops.
• Participation in research to develop improved forecast models for mountainous terrain.
• Provision of guidance and advice on establishment of the CAC.
• Technical and operational support to the Gaspé Avalanche Forecast Centre in Ste. Anne des Monts, Quebec.

National Search & Rescue Secretariat

The National Search and Rescue Secretariat (NSS) is an independent agency of government, reporting to the Lead Minister for Search and Rescue (the Minister of National Defence).The NSS was established in 1986 to support and promote the activities of the National SAR Program (NSP) as a means to achieve highly effective and economically responsible search and rescue programs throughout Canada.

In 1988 the New SAR Initiatives Fund (NIF) was established by the federal government. Managed by the NSS, NIF provides annual funding for new projects or initiatives that will improve the National Search and Rescue Program. Since 1991, NIF has provided over $3 million of research and development funding for avalanche safety projects.

Significant contributions by the National Search and Rescue Secretariat include:

• Development and publication of Observation Guidelines and Recording Standards for Weather, Snowpack and Avalanches, a national standard for data collection used by avalanche workers and researchers in Canada.
• Development and publication of Land Managers Guide to Snow Avalanche Hazards in Canada, a technical handbook to assist land managers to recognize and mitigate avalanche risk on Canadian public lands.
• Development and publication of Guidelines for Snow Avalanche Risk Determination and Mapping in Canada, a national technical standard for use by engineers, geoscientists, and other professionals to calculate avalanche risk and design avalanche defenses.
• Development of technical training courses and training materials for avalanche workers in Canada. In the past decade, approximately 4000 students have taken these courses, and these Canadian programs are now being adopted in New Zealand, Japan and Iceland.
• Development of avalanche safety training courses for non-professional recreation. These programs are available in all regions of Canada, and since 1995 more than 17,000 students have taken these two or four day programs.
• Publication of Avalanche Accidents in Canada, Volume 4 1984-1996, an analysis of avalanche accidents and the factors contributing to those events. This publication serves as an invaluable learning tool for accident prevention. More than 5000 copies have been distributed.
• Production of “Beating the Odds” a video (in 30 and 60 minute versions) for public avalanche awareness and education. Thousands of viewings to date (estimate only).
• Publication of Backcountry Avalanche Awareness and Sledding in Avalanche Terrain. These two handbooks provide avalanche awareness and education for people involved in back country recreation. More than 38,000 copies have been circulated across Canada and around the world.
• Delivery of public avalanche awareness programs and development of professional avalanche safety capacity in Quebec and in Newfoundland & Labrador.
• Development of an avalanche decision framework to generate a scientifically valid “process” for personal avalanche safety decisions. Currently in year one of a three-year project.
• Development of an internet-based avalanche response and rescue training program for on-site survivors. Few avalanche victims survive more than 30 minutes of burial. This program will train the victim’s companions to conduct an effective rescue. Currently in year one of a two-year project.
• Facilitation of interagency coordination and consulting services to establish the Canadian Avalanche Centre.

Public Safety Canada

Landslides and avalanches have resulted in more than 600 deaths in Canada since 1840 and have caused billions of dollars in damage. These mass movements of soil, rock or snow occur in all parts of the country, in mountains and flatlands, and usually without warning. Hazards include the impact of rapidly moving debris, the collapse of ground beneath a structure and secondary effects such as river damming and landslide-generated waves.

Each year, there are reports of snow avalanches burying skiers and hikers or closing highways and rail lines. The worst occurred in March, 1910 when 62 workers were killed at Rogers Pass, BC, while digging out the railway tracks from an earlier avalanche. Defensive works, such as re-routing roads and railway tracks and triggering safe avalanches in dangerous snow packs, have helped to reduce the hazard.

Natural Resources Canada

These are the services provided by Natural Resource Canada:

1. The Atlas of Canada
2. Major Avalanche Accidents in Canada