BEFORE AND AFTER

Re Banff Hot Springs Park Is Established (Moment in Time, Nov. 25): Perhaps a better title would be: “Europeans unjustly claim ownership of Banff hot springs.”

Archeological records and oral histories provide evidence that Indigenous people have been in the Bow Valley for some 13,000 years. The Stoney Nakoda people used the hot springs as a sacred ceremonial site long before the springs were “established” by the Canadian government.

How much better would the world be if we treated such sites as sacred, rather than as competition for tourist profit?

Katherine Binhammer

Canmore, Alta.