Walking the Frank Slide with KassDays

 

 

Kass is back on the move — this time across the boulder-strewn landscape of the Frank Slide, Canada’s deadliest rockslide.

At 4:10 a.m. on April 29, 1903, roughly 110 million tonnes of limestone tore free from Turtle Mountain in Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass. In about 90–100 seconds the rock raced across the valley, burying the eastern edge of the town of Frank, two kilometres of railway, and the coal mine works. Between 70 and more than 90 people lost their lives; most still lie beneath the debris.

The mountain’s unstable folded geology was the main culprit, with coal mining and freeze-thaw weather adding the final push. Local Indigenous peoples had long called it “the mountain that moves.”

Today the massive scar and the chaotic field of grey rocks remain a powerful sight. In the new video Kass walks right through it, sharing the story while standing among the same boulders that fell more than a century ago.

The full episode is on the KassDays YouTube channel. Come walk the rocks with us.