Rob: We’re heading into the May Long Weekend. Definitely a different long weekend than we normally would be having but I think we’re going to be a little bit busy. Stage one of the economic relaunch has now happened. So we’ve seen a lot of retail locations, some restaurants now reopening, not everything, but some, except in the city of Calgary where that relaunch has now been delayed. Calgarians who would like to go out and maybe enjoy a patio and the sunshine on what’s expected to be a beautiful long weekend weather-wise – where do you think they’re going to go, Tanya?

Tanya: Their favorite places, which unfortunately happens to be us. I think the messaging around what Calgarians should and shouldn’t be doing heading into this May Long Weekend might be a bit lacking from the province, considering that we had to wait to even find out that it was not going to be part of the first phase.

Rob: The direct messaging still saying non-essential travel is still not advised, but the indirect messaging of, hey, we’re starting to reopen our economy today, gives that impression that it’s okay for us to visit the mountains that we’ve missed so much over the last couple of months. That’s just the way I see it.

Tanya: I would like to see the messaging be that the reopening for communities in the mountains in smaller communities around Calgary is a local reopening only. I don’t hold out hope that that’s going to happen because I also feel this strong desire to get away and to get back to a little bit more sense of what we used to have because it’s been hard.

Rob: The Mayor of Banff, Karen Sorenson, is basically saying what you just said. Hey, Calgarians, thanks, we’d love to see you again soon, but please wait until June. But you can only say these messages so many times before that pull of the mountains and that desire to get out of the house and do something a little bit different than you’ve done the last couple of months outweighs it. When you’ve got a nice weather May Long Weekend, I see it being very busy here.

That doesn’t mean it has to be a bad thing. If people are respecting the social distancing and doing all those things they’re supposed to do, it might not be the worst thing the world. I just think that there might be an impression that because stage one is happening that we’re out of the woods coronavirus-wise. And that’s really not the case at all.

Filed under: Banff, Canmore, covid-19, Mountain Insider