Fortress Mountain hasn't had a ski lift turn since 2004. For 20 years it's sat closed in Kananaskis Country chairlifts rusting, an iconic lodge rotting, a string of owners who couldn't make it work. Now a new development team thinks they can but what they're proposing looks nothing like the mountain Albertans remember.
The Plan
Kelowna-based Ridge North America and Calgary's Western Securities have submitted a master plan to transform the former ski area into a four-season resort on 1,470 hectares of Crown land west of Calgary. The vision: gondolas, spas, ziplines, mountain coasters and eventually skiing up to 14 lifts at full build, enough to accommodate nearly 10,000 visitors a day.
There's a catch. Phase 1 has no ski lifts at all. Three sightseeing gondolas come first. Lift-served skiing doesn't return until Phase 2. The full 15-year buildout runs to 2040.
The Law Behind It
This isn't just another resort pitch. Fortress is one of the first projects moving under Alberta's All-Season Resorts Act, passed in December 2024, which was designed to pull serious private investment into Alberta tourism. The province's stated target: $25 billion in tourism revenue by 2035. Fortress, Nakiska and Castle were the first three mountains designated under the new framework.
Before any land gets approved, developers must complete Indigenous consultation, a public environmental review and community feedback sessions which just wrapped in Canmore, Calgary and Edmonton.
The Pushback
Not everyone who showed up to those sessions left convinced. Calgary resident Danica Hunt put it plainly: "We're dealing with inflation right now. The fact that another resort is being built that's probably going to cater to non-Albertans and non-Canadians is not ideal." The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society flagged that the footprint cuts through grizzly bear, wolverine and bull trout habitat and could push against the boundaries of Spray Valley Provincial Park.
Ridge North America president David McKenna contested the park boundary concern and made the case that building on an already-disturbed site beats clearing new wilderness. "If you go somewhere else, that's going to be a greenfield site. And you're going to knock down trees and putting in roads and everything else," he told The Canadian Press.
The Bottom Line
Fortress has been here before big plans, real enthusiasm, then nothing. What's different this time is the provincial framework actively backing it and two well-capitalized developers with a track record. Whether that's enough to finally bring the mountain back is still an open question. But if Phase 1 breaks ground in 2027, it'll be the first real proof that Alberta's new resort legislation can actually deliver.
Sources: Fortress Mountain Resort Master Plan (fortressmountainresort.com); Alberta All-Season Resorts Act, Government of Alberta (December 2024); The Canadian Press (March 7, 2026).
