Snow Wars

Harness number one, 18, 10, 12, 7, 3.

2, 1, 5, 6, at my command!

6, one round, fire for effect!

Fire!

Winter in British Columbia.

Year after year, there's war going on

in the Canadian Rockies.

On land and in the air, Canadians

do battle against massive amounts of snow.

They discharge powerful explosions

to protect streets, cities, and people

from the danger of gigantic avalanches crashing

down the mountainsides.

Modern ski lifts and luxurious hotels.

Southwestern British Columbia is a popular area

for winter sports.

Vacationers from all over the world

come here for the thrill of skiing in the Rocky Mountains.

There's plenty of snow here.

Up to 10 meters during the main season,

making Revelstoke an El Dorado for winter sports enthusiasts.

The lives of the people who live here revolve around snow.

It's both a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, it fuels the tourism boom.

On the other, it threatens supply routes

for the entire region.

No one knows all this better than Bruce Allen,

a winter sports enthusiast and avalanche technician

who works for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure

in British Columbia.

I don't look at my job as a fight against the snow,

but rather I work with the snow.

I at times try and manipulate the conditions under which

avalanches will happen.

So it's not as if the snow is my enemy.

The snow is actually my friend because that's

how I make a living.

Like Bruce, many people in Revelstoke

depend on snow for their livelihood.

The little town dates back to the 19th century.

When the Canadian Pacific Railway was built in the 1880s,

Revelstoke served as an important supply center.

Today, it is visited by more than a million tourists

each year.

The city is dependent on the main roads that

connected to the rest of the country.

That's why avalanche technicians like Bruce Allen

spend every winter battling the snow that

accumulates in the mountains and threatens

Revelstoke's infrastructure.

The mountain up.

The region's original residents are bewildered

by all this activity.

The Shuswap tribe has lived here for thousands of years

in harmony with nature.

To ensure that this tradition is not lost,

tribal elder Ernie Phillip teaches the tribe's young people

the ancient legends.

In the beginning, when the creator put us here,

on this land he sent his son, Chief Coyote,

to teach us how to live here.

He taught us that when we take anything from Mother Earth,

that we are to make offering of prayers and tobacco and food

that we're going to take.

Please.

We believe in respect of everything

that's made by the creator.

Everything, including rocks, including stone, everything.

The little bugs, the little things, I mean anything at all.

It's not only Mount Revelstoke, it's all the territory.

It's very special for the native people.

When the evening sun bathes the majestic mountains

in golden light, one can begin to comprehend

why the First Nations are so deeply intertwined

with this unique countryside.

But in the morning, the legends of the First Nations

seem like fairy tales from long ago,

with little relevance for the daily life

of the busy inhabitants of modern day Revelstoke.

At 6.15 AM, Bruce Allen starts another shift

in his battle against mountain snow.

In the winter months, the avalanche fighter

hardly gets a chance to rest.

It's a physically demanding job.

We have very small crews.

We're quite lean as a government section.

So we have to work 24 hours a day sometimes.

One time described to a supervisor

how I'd worked a 22-hour shift and got two hours sleep,

worked a 20-hour shift, got a three-hour sleep,

and worked a 17-hour shift.

And during the 17-hour shift, I was throwing explosives

out of a helicopter.

It's just a very trying job.

Your brain's always working.

You're always living the weather.

And so it can be quite disruptive.

But it's also quite rewarding in that it's stimulating,

and you're doing something that really does matter.

It's important work.

The snow situation in the Rocky Mountains

has exacerbated over the past few days.

In order to estimate the threat to Highway Number 1

accurately, Bruce wants to assess the snow level

at Eagle's Pass.

From above, it's easy to see how important this road is.

It is indispensable for supplying the entire region.

It also connects Revelstoke to the reservation that is home

to the First Nation tribes.

Because there are no landing platforms in the mountains,

the pilot carefully packs the snow down using

the belly of his helicopter.

There are only a few places where maneuvers like this

are possible.

Bruce and his colleague Valerie Vazotsky

will have to trudge through on foot

to reach the area that is threatened by avalanches.

The weather can change very fast in the Rocky Mountains.

Extremely dry and cold spells follow on the heels of periods

with heavy snowfall.

This looks like a good spot over here, over there.

Is that a good profile?

The changeable weather results in layers of snow

with differing density.

The layers are piled loosely on top of one another.

And sometimes the weight of a given layer

can cause it to slip and slide, creating an avalanche.

To measure and evaluate the snow,

Bruce and Val expose the various layers

present on the hillside.

Meanwhile, at Rogers Pass, about 60 kilometers from Revelstoke,

the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery

is preparing for a mission of its own.

Fighting avalanches is a matter of national security

in British Columbia, and therefore, a job for the army.

A 105-millimeter Howitzer dating back to the Vietnam War

has been refurbished to combat snow.

The soldiers are deploying to Rogers Pass,

a section of Highway Number 1

that is considered particularly prone to avalanches.

Jeff Goodrich, head avalanche expert at Parks Canada,

is responsible for Glacier National Park,

which covers more than 1,300 square kilometers.

A large avalanche will have a significant dust component or air blast,

and that air blast can travel at 350 kilometers an hour

and can break trees and would be very destructive

to a truck or a passenger vehicle if it reached the road.

So when we do our control missions,

we try to move snow before it reaches that large size.

So if we were able to do control and have the avalanches stop short of the road,

that's a successful mission for us.

Motorists tend to underestimate or ignore the danger of avalanches

charging down the steep inclines at the edge of the highway.

Most of them hardly notice the big warning signs lining the road.

They feel safe in their cars.

The drivers have people like Jeff Goodrich to thank

for the fact that they are able to use the highway safely.

The avalanche expert mans an observation post near the road.

From here, he can easily monitor the dangerous slopes.

Meanwhile, the soldiers are bringing their weapon into position.

Lining the highway are 18 concrete platforms for the Howitzer,

each of them directly adjacent from the section of the mountain range

that is especially prone to avalanches.

The commanding officer is Captain Walker Pryor.

So we're here from about November to April.

It's two rotors long, so we're about out here for three months.

This is one of the unique domestic operations within Canada.

We keep the highway open for all the Canadians who travel to Alberta through to BC.

The soldiers aim the cannon at the coordinates Jeff provided.

Permission number one, H.E. Creek chart seven, bearing 2-1-5-6.

At my command! Elevation 606, one round fire for effect!

Bolt bearing 2-1-5-6.

Angle 2-8.

Canadian drivers, like motorists everywhere in the world,

don't like being stuck in traffic.

So the workers don't close the road until the cannon is in place and ready.

Jamie Kroeger, of Parks Canada, is responsible for coordination between the soldiers

manning the Howitzer and the crews along highway number one.

With up to 15,000 vehicles per hour,

this is one of British Columbia's most heavily traveled routes.

Jeff, we're ready on Observatory target one.

Time is money, even in an otherwise pastoral setting,

like British Columbia.

Closing the highway costs about $75,000 an hour.

Jeff and his team need to act quickly.

10-4, Jamie. Let her go.

Fire.

Fire!

Fire!

Observatory target four next.

Observatory target four.

Elevation 606, done tricks in 300. One ready.

Jeff, we're ready on Observatory target four.

Let her go.

Fire.

Fire!

Another projectile is shot from the cannon at a speed of 460 meters per second.

Right.

Fire.

This time, the explosion brought the desired result.