TransCanada Ecotour
TransCanada Ecotour – West Yellowhead Region: Foothills Research Institute
Over two million people a year drive through the landscape studied by the Foothills Research Institute, yet interpretive media for the human, ecological, and geological history are largely unavailable. The “Eco Tour” interpretive program was first developed by the Canadian Forest Service for the Calgary-Banff corridor in the 1970s. Since then, the CFS and more recently Canadian Geographic have used the approach to develop similar tours for different parts of Canada. Existing books and reports of the AFM/History program as well as FRI research, complemented by materials from local historian Tom Peterson and with new material unearthed by lead author Fred Pollett are being applied in the development of this new book.
This project is expected to be complete by late fall 2010 at which time – if funds are available – a related project to convert the information into a GPS-based tour package will be developed. This guide would be used as an alternative to the paper copy, and will also provide a template from which other FRI self-guided tours can be patterned.
This project is supported by a grant from Alberta Sustainable Resource Development as well as the Community Initiatives Program.