Kananaskis Golf Course tees up reopening, four years after flood

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Four years and countless kilograms of debris later, the Kananaskis Country Golf Course is edging closer to reopening.

The premier 18-hole courses — Mount Kidd and Mount Lorette — are in various stages of repair following the devastating flood of 2013, but will be fully operational by the first tee times of 2018.

‘”We’re closing in on getting the first 18 completed in terms of grass and we expect that to happen sometime over the next month,” said general manager Darren Robinson. “We’ve been going hard since May 1 . . . and we’ve made some tremendous progress.”

Robinson said the plan was to rebuild Mount Lorette first, then switch over to Mount Kidd, but some of the work has been done simultaneously, such as the exhaustive relaying of the irrigation system. If there’s any positive from the flood, Robinson said it provided the opportunity to upgrade a 30-year-old system to one more environmentally friendly and make some tweaks to the course.

Robinson said much of the flood debris was reused: cobble became berms; silt dredged from ponds is the bedding material for irrigation; excavated sand has become the new tee boxes. What is new is the sod — bluegrass from Coaldale, for the tees and fairways, while bent grass from Abbotsford, B.C., is being rolled out on the greens. The powdery silica sand for the traps is from the same Golden, B.C., supplier used for the past 30 years.

“We had to bring in turf because we have such an aggressive timeline to complete it and get it back open. In this part of the world, we’ve got such a limited window of growth. Starting from seed would take years longer,” said Robinson.

Coming into this season, five holes on Mount Lorette remained incomplete. On Mount Kidd, all of the major construction work is finished but it still needs irrigation installation, finishing grading and grass. Looking down from the clubhouse, the scope of work is apparent as Mount Kidd to the left is all brown, contoured dirt while, to the right, Mount Lorette’s ninth fairway is a lush green belt skirting a brilliant blue pond.

“One of the greatest lessons the flood taught me is perspective,” said Robinson. “The task is monumental and at times it feels overwhelming. But when you start breaking it down, hole by hole, it becomes achievable. And now that we’re laying the grass, it starts to feel real.”

That’s opposed to the rather surreal situation Robinson and his 150 staff faced in June 2013.

Early on June 20, about 5 a.m., the usually sedate Evan Thomas Creek plowed through the valley, breaching its banks, cutting diagonally across Mount Kidd’s 14th and 15th fairways and the driving range, spreading out below the clubhouse. That was quickly followed by an overflowing Kananaskis River. All but four holes of the government-owned, privately operated course were damaged. 

“Thousands of trees were deposited from the flood, including dead and dying trees that were choked off with silt. With a flood, of course, comes silt and cobble and all sorts of other things that get deposited,” said Robinson. “It carved channels that didn’t exist before. It filled in creeks. Our ornamental ponds were silted in.

“These kinds of things were a significant undertaking to get that all cleaned up. That was probably the biggest challenge.”

Aside from the Mount Lorette snack shack and on-course washrooms, most of the buildings, including the clubhouse, were minimally affected. The tournament centre became ground zero for many as the Department of National Defence and provincial crews worked to reopen roads.

“You’re in crisis mode at first but then you start to look at the big picture and how it affects you, your staff, your family,” Robinson said. “It’s not just our place of employment, but it’s where we live. There’s been some stressful times when you think about those things.”

Once the river banks were shored up and breaches blocked, they began to assess the damage. That’s when they knew they were facing a long rebuild. Managers helped staff find new employment.

“After the flood, we went down to a skeleton staff of four. There was so much uncertainty moving forward so we couldn’t hang on to stuff. We started liquidating from the pro shop, our golf carts.”

While it has been four years since the flood, repairs only began in earnest in 2014 after the former Tory government approved $18 million to rebuild. An assessment in 2015 found that an additional $5 million was required to protect against rock and debris, which caused most of the damage in 2013. That money is going to in-stream gravel traps and enhanced armouring around the course.

The province expects to recover at least $14 million of the initial outlay through the federal disaster assistance program. It is also looking to recover the additional mitigation funding, said Alberta Environment and Parks spokesman Brent Wittmeier.

Following the flood, opposition parties, which included the NDP and Wildrose, criticized the funding and lease extension for the operator, Kan-Alta Golf Management, but Alberta’s auditor general has since said the agreements made financial sense given the long-term contract signed in 1999.

“While the current government does not believe the province should be in the golf course business, inherited agreements left little choice but to move ahead with the project,” said Wittmeier.

But for Robinson, the Kananaskis Country Golf Course is not just a place to hit some balls on a sunny summer day. With its jaw-dropping scenery, frequent wildlife encounters and dedicated staff, he believes it’s something special.

“We’ve had countless people who have met here, married and had kids. One woman just posted her daughter’s 15th birthday on Facebook. In three years, we’ll have a second generation from Kananaskis. That’s pretty cool.

“There’s so much love and passion for this place.”