ABSTRACT
An excerpt from the editorial introduction by Axel Borsdorf (2009, 225) in the journal Die Erde reflects insights from its compilation of amenity migration research titled Amenity Migration in Rural Mountain Areas. It captures the increase of people moving into higher amenity mountain regions to reside either year round or intermittently based on an actual or perceived enhanced environmental or cultural quality over their original permanent place of residence (Glorioso and Moss 2003; Moss 2006). This movement is pronounced in the Bow Corridor Valley of the Canadian Rockies, where the towns of Canmore and Banff, combined with the natural and heritage amenities of Banff National Park, create some of the most used and recognized tourism and recreation landscapes in Canada. These landscapes draw both permanent residents and second homeowners who are seeking what has been identified as an outdoor recreation lifestyle and an associated
quality of life (McNicol and Pavelka 2013). The amenity migration movement to attractive mountain systems includes retirees as second homeowners (Moss 2006; Moss, Glorioso, and Krause 2009). Second homeowners, including retirees, are changing many western North American landscapes of former small resource communities especially where winter and summer recreational opportunities are diverse and plentiful and where the housing availability is becoming upmarket and cosmopolitan.
