Staffer injured in Columbia Icefield all

A man was injured on the job after a tour vehicle rolled down a hill on the Columbia Icefield, about 120 kilometres south of Jasper, Alta.

RCMP and Pursuit, the company that runs the bus tours, said the man was the only one involved and no one else was on the all-terrain vehicle when the rollover happened around 11 a.m. Tuesday.

An Ice Odyssey tour vehicle operated by a Pursuit team member was conducting an operational maintenance check when the rollover happened, the company said.

Pursuit’s Canadian chief operating officer Stuart Back said the vehicle rolled backwards and down off the road.

The employee was taken to hospital with unknown injuries and is now recovering.

“He’s actually just been just been released from hospital, which is great news, positive sign,” Back said. “May require further care but is on the mend, so to speak, having just been released.”

The all-terrain Ice Odyssey vehicles — also known as “Fat Trucks” —are built to traverse the Athabasca Glacier at the icefield, which straddles the Alberta-British Columbia boundary.

The investigation has been handed over to Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety department.

Pursuit cancelled tours, but said they would resume Thursday but said Ice Odyssey tours will remain unavailable until September 8, at the earliest.

“We are gathering facts about the incident and carefully reviewing the circumstances with the applicable authorities. We will not speculate about the cause while that work is underway,” Back said.

Affected customers were offered refunds for their glacier tours or the opportunity to rebook, it added.

The Columbia Icefield Skywalk, which operates separately from the glacier experience, remains open.

Back in 2020, three people died and 14 were seriously injured when a different vehicle, an Ice Explorer bus, lost control and rolled in what a judge later determined to be caused by a “catastrophic braking issue.”

With files from Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press