Karsten Heuer has lived beyond limits, fought fiercely to protect wild places and now prepares for his final journey
Drew Anderson is the Prairies reporter for The Narwhal, a non-profit online magazine that publishes in-depth journalism about the natural world. This story has been co-published with
It’s the kind of thought that might only occur to someone who has lived like Mr. Heuer. He has traversed thousands of kilometres through the Rockies on foot and followed a caribou herd for months through the north of the continent. He fits the smallest pieces into the larger whole, his philosophy the result of a collection of experiences that few could match over the course of a long life.Two years after surviving that fall from his tree stand, he noticed changes – he couldn’t drink a single beer without acting drunk, for one – and was diagnosed with a fast-acting and fatal neurological condition called multiple system atrophy.
In the 1990s, research emerged showing the impacts of roads criss-crossing the landscape. Expansive ecosystems were being cut into smaller and smaller fragments.In some ways, the situation is now more dire, but over the decades, Mr. Heuer and others like him had been fighting for better outcomes, and winning victories along the way.
It was a setback, but as Mr. Heuer recounts the pivotal moments of his life, it’s striking how he seemed to have been in the right place at the right time. He has good timing, which he says is “a pretty funny thing to say to a guy who’s going to die prematurely.”In 1991 while he was studying ecology at the University of Calgary, Mr. Heuer volunteered for a study to recolonize the Rockies with wolves.
One early experience in his career showed Mr. Heuer what his job could be at its best. In 1992, he was contracted to help conduct a study into wildlife corridors in developed areas in Banff.That winter, the team trekked through the snow on foot, following wildlife such as wolves, lynxes and cougars to map the animals’ travel patterns.
Mr. Heuer’s understanding of the Rockies as a vast, connected ecosystem started to crystallize when he first met conservationist Mr. Locke in the early 1990s. Mr. Heuer watched a presentation Mr. Locke gave about the need to consider the Rocky Mountains one contiguous stretch of habitat that needed protection – an idea spurred by wildlife like Pluie the wolf. Mr. Heuer was captivated.
Traversing it footstep by footstep, from valley to valley, he started to understand the grand sweep of it all at a human level. Mr. Heuer says the Yellowstone-to-Yukon vision changed how we look at the natural world, and that it helped to leverage small issues into ones that are continental in scale – thinking about how 100 acres on one parcel of land could impact tens of thousands of acres across a region.Mr. Heuer’s trek wasn’t just a catalyst for a lifetime of conservation advocacy – it was also the proving grounds for a great love story.
“I think we were 21 when we went up and paddled the Nahanni River together,” Ms. Allison recalls. “In the Kraus hot springs we had our first kiss under the Northern Lights. Totally romantic. But then we got back to Calgary from that trip and he dumped me.”They remained friends – Ms. Allison says it would have been impossible not to – and then came the Yellowstone-to-Yukon trek. She credits that trip in 1998, and Mr.
When Mr. Heuer returned home and started to write his book, he struggled. He was trying to write about something scientific but it felt more like recounting a dream. “You couldn’t argue that in front of a judge or at a public hearing or something, but it’s something that I feel in my heart, having known these caribou, the intricacies with how they communicate, the kinds of things that got revealed to us when we just had the time to truly listen and shed our human agendas.”
An immensity looms – the bulk of the mountain, the heaviness of what’s to come for Mr. Heuer, Ms. Allison, their son and their close friends and colleagues.. Mr. Heuer and his collaborators are awaiting a judicial ruling on an Alberta government decision to skip an updated environmental impact assessment . Mr. Heuer says the valley and the proposal have changed significantly over those decades.
Heuer Mr Heuer Mr Heuer Time Way Canmore Life Caribou Anderson University Of Calgary Rocky Mountains
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