Time for Nature

Going underground for Parks Canada

September 5, 2006

Printable version (121 KB)

Mapping Castleguard Cave in Banff National Park of Canada

For twenty kilometres, Castleguard Cave snakes beneath the mountains and icefields of Banff National Park of Canada . It's a magical place where mineral-laden seepage water has created a profusion of stalactites, stalagmites and flowstones. Aragonite crystals sparkle among the cauliflower-like "moonmilk" deposits that coat the cave walls.

For more than 40 years, cave explorers have been collecting information about the cave's features. But Castleguard's wonders had never been fully documented. Parks Canada needed a detailed map to manage the cave and protect its features. So they called in the experts - volunteer cavers from Alberta, British Columbia and other parts of the world.

There are big challenges in mapping a cave

Castleguard Cave snakes beneath the mountains and icefields of Banff National Park of Canada.
© Parks Canada, Greg Horne

For surface landscapes like forests and wetlands, mapmakers can use such labour-saving tools as aerial photos and remote sensing . Mapping caves, however, is a painstaking process that requires many hours underground.

"Due to a cave's three-dimensional extent, the inability to look at it from a distant perspective and its potential to be greater in size than first imagined, accurate mapping of a large cave is critically important," says park warden Greg Horne.

A great use for trigonometry

At Castleguard Cave, mineral-laden seepage water has created a profusion of cave features, such as this calcite column (a joined stalactite and stalagmite).
© Parks Canada, Greg Horne

Cave surveyors use trigonometry: angle of direction, angle of inclination and distance to determine a cave's overall shape and size. Then they make additional measurements of the passages or chambers. Finally they fill in the details, making field sketches and descriptions of cave features.

All this information is combined with a dash of computer artistry. A cave surveying program, a drawing program and a printer produce a digital map that can be modified as necessary.

Cavers help out

For Parks Canada to pay a contractor to map the cave, it would have been prohibitively expensive. Even with a computer, it was a huge job to process four decades of Castleguard Cave data. Fortunately, two members of the Alberta Speleological Society, a group devoted to the scientific study and exploration of caves, gave the project their spare time for two years. The two men, Taco van Ieperen and Dan Green, produced a set of large-scale base maps for the cave - 56 sheets in all for the portable map set!

Heading back underground

For more than 40 years, cave explorers have been collecting information about the cave's features.
© Parks Canada, Greg Horne

In 2005, Greg Horne and volunteer cavers from the Alberta and British Columbia speleological societies headed into the cave to flesh out the maps. They added new information and corrected errors. "We spent five days camped underground, about five kilometres into the cave," says Greg Horne.

The map is a very valuable tool for Parks Canada. Many cave features are fragile and could easily be damaged by careless visitors. There are also hazards to guard against. With seasonal melting of the Columbia Icefield , portions of the cave flood in warmer weather.

This ambitious project shows how volunteers can make a big difference to our national parks.

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