On December 17th, 2010 the Canadian Badlands Passion Play Society was given official notice that the property it co-owns with the former Drumheller Valley Ski Club (1997) is now involved in a foreclosure process. A financial institution has served notice that it has taken this action against the Drumheller Valley Ski Club (1997).
The notice came after 12 months of the Passion Play working with the Ski Club to complete an agreement on the division of assets, to have each organization solely own the property it operates on. The agreement was originally made necessary because of an accident at the ski hill in 2008 where the Passion Play was named in a lawsuit because it co-owns the land at the base of the ski hill, even though the Passion Play is not involved in any way in the operations of the ski hill. The Ski Club did not have liability insurance at the time of the accident - the Passion Play was named in the lawsuit along with the Town of Drumheller and Christ the Redeemer School Division. During the legal discovery process, the Ski Club failed to appear and subsequently the Passion Play was also sued by the Province of Alberta in order to recover the hospital costs related to the accident. The final judgment and full cost of this action is yet to be determined in court.
As a result of the lawsuits, the Passion Play was requested by its insurance company to seek a legal division of assets with the Ski Club. An agreement on a division of assets was signed in September of 2009. The agreement stated that the Passion Play would buy out the Ski Club’s half interest in the Lodge and retain the western parking lot (13.5 acres) while turning the remainder of the land (55 acres) over to the Ski Club for their activities. In a spirit of cooperation and with the intent to see skiing continue in the valley, the Passion Play also agreed to make the Lodge available to the Ski Club for the next four years for only the cost of the winter utilities. The agreement should have been executed as soon as the land subdivision was complete, but in May, 2010, the Ski Club was struck from the provincial registry of non-profit organizations and as a result the agreement could not be completed.
The Passion Play has diligently worked throughout the year to live up to its part the agreement, going so far as to pay the Ski Club’s property taxes, the outstanding natural gas bill from the 2008/2009 ski season and all the utilities for the 2009/2010 ski season. In addition the Passion Play had to pay for bus transportion for its volunteers during the Passion Play season after being prevented from parking near the base of the ski lift. The total cost to the Passion Play was over $20,000 which is now lost as the agreement cannot be finalized.
In spite of the difficulties that have directly impacted the operations of the Passion Play the Board of Directors is willing to work towards keeping skiing as a viable option in the valley. “The ski hill has seen many challenges in the last few years," says Wilfred Golbeck, President of the Canadian Badlands Passion Play Society. "But we still hope that a new non-profit group can be formed and operate the ski hill in a stable and community-minded manner."