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Diversifying industry mix for sustained growth
Canmore encountered its first boom when coal was discovered shortly after the town was established in 1883 as a train stop west of Calgary. For nearly 100 years it remained a one-industry town, almost entirely dependent, commercially speaking, on coal production, until the last mine shut down in 1979.
Canmore emerged from the resulting dust cloud - some feared their mountain home would become a ghost town without coal - within a decade, when Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics.
The world was introduced to Canmore as the spectacular mountain town that hosted the Games’ Nordic events and the town enjoyed boom times once more.
Canmore, well situated between Calgary and Banff National Park, was put on the map and tourism took over as the town’s main economic impetus.
It’s difficult to distinguish between one boom and another since the Olympics.
A chart of the town’s economic prosperity over the past 15 years would display more peaks than troughs, according to Canmore Economic Development Agency executive director Teresa Mullen. She says Canmore has undergone strong and steady economic growth for over a decade.
And although tourism serves the community well, the town has learned from its past.
Planners, municipally and commercially-minded, are all too aware of the pitfalls of growing as a single-industry economy.
The recently drafted Canmore Economic Development Strategy recognizes market diversity as a key factor for economic sustainability and acknowledges a need for assorted investment stimuli. “Any time you are building a strategy you take a look at your strengths and what you have already that is being underutilized,” Mullen says.
“We want to build on our strengths.”