Alberta tour bus operator charged by province after fatal glacier rollover in Jasper National Park in 2020

A tour bus operator is facing eight charges in connection with a fatal 2020 rollover that saw a bus specially designed to ferry tourists across glaciers overturn in a remote part of Jasper National Park, killing three.

While the results of an RCMP investigation have not yet been released, the charges announced Friday were laid under Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, and allege that Brewster Inc. failed to maintain a safe workplace by, among other things, requiring seatbelts, controlling the hazard of the lateral moraine, meaning the gravel slope the bus rolled down, and ensuring all equipment could perform the function for which it was designed.

The case will go to court in the mountain town of Jasper on June 23.

Brewster’s Ice Explorer tours at the Athabasca Glacier in the southern part of Jasper park are a popular tourist attraction in the summer. The Ice Explorers, which look like large buses with outsized tires, travel up the lateral moraine — the ridge of rock and dirt that gets pushed up along the sides of the glacier — before turning down the moraine and onto the glacier itself, where visitors are often given the chance to walk around.

But on July 18, 2020, one tour carrying 27 people took a terrifying turn, overturning before it reached the ice and rolling “50 to 100 yards” down the hill, RCMP said at the time. Three people died at the scene while the rest, including the driver, were taken to hospital.

As the closest town to the glacier is the townsite of Jasper itself, roughly an hour and a half to the north on a two-lane scenic highway, the rescue required a co-ordinated effort from local helicopter companies.

The RCMP investigation into the incident is independent and separate from Alberta’s, though some information was shared, according to a release. That investigation has concluded and is being reviewed.

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