Rescues hit all-time high in Kananaskis Country
CBC
Shilo Nosyk was camping with friends and family last summer in Alberta's Elbow-Sheep Wildland Provincial Park when her then-15-year-old son's throat started to close.
Ryker is allergic to peanuts, and one was inadvertently included in a meal pouch.
Shilo gave him an antihistamine, used an EpiPen and called for help on a satellite communications device.
About an hour later, two Kananaskis Mountain Rescue specialists, followed by two paramedics, landed at their site.
“To see the helicopter in the sky, it was a huge sense of relief,” said Nosyk, an experienced backcountry camper.
Ryker was taken to Alberta Children’s Hospital for precautionary reasons and recovered well.
“You feel so helpless because you’re out there, it’s my son and it’s a life or death situation, and you’re so dependent on them to come and help you,” Nosyk said. “There was nothing we could’ve done since we were nine kilometres from the parking lot.”
Their rescue was one of a record 445 in Kananaskis Country last year. It surpassed the previous high of 436 in 2021 in the popular mountain park network just 60 kilometres west of Calgary.
Kananaskis saw about five million visitors in 2025 compared to 3.6 million people in 2015.
“It’s very similar to there’s more cars on the road, there’s often more accidents,” said Mike Koppang, a mountain rescue specialist with the provincial government. “If there’s more people out here, there can sometimes be more accidents.”
Visitors to the roughly 4,000 square kilometres of Kananaskis Country have continued to surge.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, visitation peaked at 5.4 million in 2020. It has largely levelled off to about five million a year — more than nearby Banff National Park.
The provincial government has prioritized increasing tourism to the area, with a goal of $25 billion in annual revenue by 2035.
Last summer was Kananaskis Country's busiest for rescue calls.
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