‘It was nuts’: Banff residents want changes after hectic skijoring weekend

Banff’s SnowDays Skijoring weekend in 2026 saw around 10,000 people flood the streets, a huge turnout that’s leaving residents calling for changes for future events.

Transportation and parking were major issues for the town after the event.

According to the Mayor’s office, nearly 240 parking tickets were issued over the weekend, along with numerous vehicles that were towed.

Nearly 24,000 vehicles entered the community last Saturday, with a record for the number of vehicles entering the town being set an hour before skijoring began, and another for when they left — a major strain on the community.

Skijor Canada calls it the fastest-growing winter sport in North America. While it’s a hard metric to measure, the organization said the event sold out hotel rooms in town.

Some say the event on Banff Avenue brought too large a crowd for the town to manage.

“Yeah, no, they definitely need to have less people, more control over it. Maybe sell a ticket — $20 a head — to try to limit people coming in for that weekend,” said Banff resident Quinn Simpson.

“But yeah, it can’t be how it was last weekend again. It was nuts.”

Watch: Thousands flock to downtown Banff to watch Skijoring

Banff tour guide Shak Kalantzis says she and others were overwhelmed by the number of people.

“Skijoring was crazy, I’ve never seen anything like that. I tried to pop out. I was here for about three tricks on the skis, and I couldn’t do the crowds, it was insane,” she said.

“It took like 10 minutes to walk from the visitors centre to cross the road. It was nuts.”

Mayor Corrie Dimano says all solutions to manage the event are on the table going forward.

“Whether that’s transportation related and perhaps park and rides are implemented, maybe it moves to a ticketed event to help with capacity management, perhaps it’s relocated off Banff avenue and onto a different part of town,” she told CityNews.

Despite all the issues, Dimanno says the Skijoring event was quite beneficial for the hospitality industry, especially considering this is the slowest time of year for tourism in Banff.

“Were trying to show folks what else they could be doing in town, and so skijoring was certainly successful in the fact that it has raised our profile as a winter destination and a place to come and experience winter,” Dimanno said.

Since the event, Banff’s town council has also voted to extend its destination event ban.

Historically, large destination events weren’t allowed between May and September in the town. However, it will now be extended through Thanksgiving.

With files from The Canadian Press