The COVID-19 pandemic has walloped tourism-dependent mountain towns by cutting short what had been shaping up to be a great ski season in Western Canada.
At the same time, there are concerns too many people are heading to wilderness trails and that regional hospitals can’t cope with a potential surge in novel coronavirus cases among outsiders.
A normal March afternoon in downtown Revelstoke, B.C., would be “absolute pandemonium” with skiers and snowboarders looking for a meal or some drinks, said Mayor Gary Sulz. “All the streets would be full.
There would be no place to park,” he said. Not so, this past week. “Pretty much all of our downtown merchants have closed their stores.