The Bow Valley has lost a steward of the land and champion for the wildlife that call it home.
Karsten Heuer was a renowned Canmore-based conservationist, biologist, author and award-winning filmmaker. His family said he died peacefully in his backyard earlier this week at the age of 56.
Heuer chose medical assistance in dying after being diagnosed with a rare neurological disease called multiple system atrophy.
Among his accolades, he helped reintroduce bison to Banff National Park, followed caribou through northern Canada and Alaska to highlight the impact of resource development on the land and paddled with his son and wife all the way from the Bow River to Nova Scotia to visit the places author Farley Mowat’s stories were set in.
Heuer was known as a down-to-earth, approachable and inspirational leader, who leaves behind a powerful environmental legacy.
Speaking to Daybreak Alberta host Paul Karchut, two Canmore town councillors and friends of Heuer, Jeff Mah and Wade Graham, said he was an icon of the Bow Valley.
Mah reminisced about a public engagement session where about 40 people from Canmore were asked who would make a good representative for the town. He said everyone present was in agreement.
“There was a resounding — if we had to think of someone that was a quintessential Canmorian, that embodied a ton of values on conservation…. Karsten’s name came front and centre. And there’s just these nods of agreement around the room,” Mah said.
“We all want to be like Karsten.”
Right side of history
Graham said Heuer had a magnetic presence that made people want to stand next to him.
“He led with such integrity and such courage and conviction that you really wanted to just be there beside that,” he said.
Graham described Heuer as a soft-spoken man in a loud world who was always mindful about being on the right side of history.
Mah said he and his family watched Heuer and his wife Leanne Allison’s 2004 documentary Being Caribou recently and were taken aback by its quality.
“I was like, holy shmoly, just to take that undertaking on and follow a herd of caribou across the Yukon into the Alaska area was pretty impressive,” Mah said.
Heuer’s friends said they are still processing his death, but got the sense that he had made peace with his situation before he passed away.
“I think that’s a courageous path to the very end,” Mah said.
Graham said a hole has been left in the Canmore community without Heuer.
“His wife Leanne is also an incredible person, and his son Zev, an incredible young man,” Graham said.
Mah added Heuer had done phenomenal work in the final chapter of his life in bringing back bison to Banff National Park.
“These last nine years, Karsten’s actually reintroduced an apex species into the Bow Valley,” he said.
Mah said Heuer in his final weeks had written a book about the bison in Banff National Park, which is slated to be published sometime in the near future.
“He was more physically limited in what he could do by the end of his life, but he made sure his mind was sharp and he wrote what he needed to write…. No days were wasted in Karsten Heuer’s life.”