In late July, after almost 18 months of deliberating, the B.C. government decided to bypass an environmental assessment for a proposed new ski resort in the province’s spectacular Selkirk Mountains. Instead, the 5,500-hectare Zincton development will be reviewed by the government’s Mountain Resorts Branch, an agency set up to facilitate resort development.
While it’s not quite a green light for Zincton (the proposal still needs to go through three more review stages with the Mountain Resorts Branch) it will definitely speed things up. And not everyone is pleased about it.
What’s at stake?
Located just east of New Denver, B.C., Zincton would contain 20% lift-serviced terrain and 80% backcountry skiing, be capable of hosting more than 1,200 skiers a day, and feature a resort village with beds for around 1,700 people. It’s an interesting concept, but ever since Valhalla Pure founder David Harley first put forward the idea in December 2019, it has been plagued with controversy.
Part of the reason why this landscape has escaped the spread of ski resorts thus far lies in the fact that much of it is protected. The proposed Zincton tenure area is sandwiched between four provincial parks: Goat Range to the north, Kokanee Glacier to the south, Valhalla to the west and the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy to the east. And therein lies the resort’s fatal flaw: Zincton would bring thousands of people and permanent infrastructure into a critical wildlife movement area for grizzly bears, wolverines, mountain goats and other sensitive species that live in this landscape or move between the protected areas.
A 2023 Ktunaxa Nation Council cumulative effects study raised serious concerns about fragmentation impacts in the area, particularly for local grizzly and wolverine populations. It also noted that Huckleberry patches, water quality and western toads could all be impacted too.
Zincton is being cleverly marketed as a low-density, low-impact, backcountry resort that’s a “radical departure” from existing resorts. The problem is that a ski resort is, by definition, an inherently impactful development. Zincton will attract skiers and riders in winter, and hikers and mountain bikers in summer, imposing year-round impacts on local wildlife. It will see roads, trails and infrastructure developed in a sensitive alpine environment. And that infrastructure will remain for decades, if not centuries.
Where to from here?
With beds for around 1,700 people, Zincton falls short of the 2,000-bed threshold that would automatically trigger an environmental assessment. But due to the project’s significant environmental impact, Wildsight asked the Minister of Environment to use their discretionary powers and require an EA anyway. The Sinixt Confederacy filed a similar request, citing impacts to Indigenous rights.
More than 1,400 people sent letters to the province supporting our call, but last month the Environmental Assessment Office decided that an EA “would be duplicative [of the Mountain Resorts Branch’s review process] and is not required.”
So, where does that leave Zincton?
The resort is now at the second stage of the Mountain Resorts Branch’s five-stage review process. It’s unlikely there will be more opportunities for public consultation, but there should be ongoing consultation with First Nations and technical experts about the proposal’s environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts.
According to The Narwhal, there’s no set timeline for this process; the branch has said it will continue “until the risk of potential negative impacts and critical issues are sufficiently addressed.”
Wildsight’s hope is that the Mountain Resorts Branch will carry out in-depth environmental and socio-cultural assessments as part of its review. In the meantime, we’re looking into other options to ensure this landscape, and the wildlife that rely on it, are safe and protected.