What We've Learned Nine Months After 11 Children Were Hospitalized At A Canmore Hotel

Nine months after a chemical incident at Canmore Inn & Suites sent 11 children to hospital, new details have emerged about what went wrong and what's changed since.

An engineering review commissioned by the hotel and shared with Alberta Health Services (AHS) identified a bypassed chemical controller as the likely cause of the Jan. 25 incident, which allowed chlorine and acid to mix in the pool's circulation system.

The pool reopened June 12, more than four months after AHS ordered it closed. Since then, the hotel has introduced additional safety measures, including new equipment and stricter staff supervision.

“An engineering review commissioned by Canmore Inn & Suites concluded the incident was likely caused by the pool chemical controller being bypassed, allowing chlorine and acid pumps to operate outside of normal control parameters and causing a mixing of these chemicals,” Kristi Bland, AHS lead of issues management and media relations, wrote in an email to Bow Valley Insider.

The review was conducted by CEP Forensic, according to Serge Girard, the hotel’s general manager.

He said it concluded the incident was likely caused by “a procedural error in the operation of the chemical feed equipment” and found no maintenance deficiencies in the systems reviewed.

Girard said the hotel accepts the review’s conclusions but will not release it publicly because it contains details about individual employees. The full report was, however, provided to AHS.

In a summary of an AHS inspector’s April presentation published in aquatics consultant Katie Crysdale’s POOLaide newsletter, the chlorine and acid pumps were reported to have been unplugged from their interlocked outlets, which are designed to prevent the pumps from operating independently of the pool's circulation system.

Instead, the pumps had been plugged into regular outlets for manual chemical dosing, bypassing those safeguards.

“The liquid acid & chlorine met inline (within the pipes of the pool’s circulation system) to apparently generate toxic chlorine gas,” reads Crysdale’s summary.

She declined to be interviewed for this story.

What Happened On Jan. 25?

On the morning of Jan. 25, about 30 children were exhibiting symptoms of illness, according to the Town of Canmore, and the pool area was evacuated to a triage area set up near the hotel lobby.

Emergency crews initially activated mass-casualty protocols when responding to the incident. Eleven children were hospitalized, with one taken to Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary in serious but stable condition.

“There was an apparent release of chlorine gas or other toxic substance causing harm to bathers,” according to AHS’s closure order, issued Jan. 26.

Mike Kastern of Calgary was in Canmore with his family for a hockey tournament, and his two boys were in the pool during the incident.

According to Kastern, his sons “went through minor testing at the hotel,” while two other boys from the hockey team were taken to hospital and released later that day.

Kastern said his family was contacted by representatives from Canmore Inn & Suites after the incident by phone and email.

The email, which was shared with Bow Valley Insider, said the hotel was cooperating with authorities and denied claims that had been “circulating on social media” about the presence of cyanide.

What Changed Before The Pool Reopened?

Before reopening, the hotel replaced its chemical controller, introduced safeguards to restrict manual operation, upgraded monitoring systems and provided additional staff training, according to Girard.

The hotel now requires a certified pool operator to be on shift whenever the pool is open.

That was not the case on Jan. 25. Girard said the employee operating the equipment that day was not individually certified but “had been appointed and trained as a designate to perform routine chemical checks and was in direct telephone contact with the Certified Pool Operator that day.”

Provincial regulations do not require a certified operator to be on site whenever a pool is open.

The hotel has also updated its record-keeping procedures, which were the subject of previous reporting by the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

Provincial standards require manual chemical checks at least once daily and weekly water samples for bacterial testing. Girard said hotel staff now document manual readings at least four times a day, alongside electronic monitoring.

AHS's closure order required the hotel to determine the cause of the incident, correct the conditions that allowed it to happen and introduce safeguards before reopening.

Girard said no fines or additional restrictions were imposed, and that some of the hotel's changes exceed provincial requirements.

During a subsequent inspection on July 14, about a month after the pool reopened, AHS recorded a pH reading above the permitted maximum and found that the chemical controller needed recalibrating..

Both issues were resolved during the inspection, and no closure order was issued.

The hotel initially told Bow Valley Insider there had been no additional inspections. Girard later corrected that response and apologized.

He said the inspector's initial pH reading was above the permitted range, but the hotel's controller, its own tests and a second tester used during the inspection all showed readings within range.

“We monitor and document pool water quality several times a day using multiple testing methods,” Girard said.

What Do Inspection Records Show?

According to AHS documents, inspectors followed up on complaints at the hotel's pool or hot tub on 32 separate days between November 2023 and October 2025, citing violations each time.

The violations covered a range of issues, including three whirlpool closures in 2024.

These records predate the January incident and do not establish that the earlier violations caused the chemical exposure.

As of Oct. 21, AHS listed 23 active closure orders on recreational water facilities across the province. Thirteen of them, or 57 per cent, involved hotel pools or hot tubs.

Two of those current closures are in the Bow Valley: whirlpools at Falcon Crest Lodge in Canmore and Deer Lodge in Lake Louise.

Beyond changes at the hotel, there have been no changes to provincial pool regulations or to Canmore Fire-Rescue’s procedures since the incident.

Canmore Fire-Rescue’s role was limited to the initial response, according to the Town.

“In Fire-Rescue’s internal after-action review, no operational/response changes were determined for future Fire-Rescue responses of the same nature,” said Nicky Pacas, communications advisor with the Town of Canmore, by email.

The province regulates public pools and has not changed its rules for certified operator attendance since the incident. The only amendment in 2026 covered small tubs.

Under the current regulations, a certified pool operator still does not need to be on site whenever a pool is open.

“All public pools in Alberta are routinely inspected by AHS’ Environmental Public Health inspectors (EPH) and EPH staff have been educated on this incident for awareness in routine inspections,” Bland said.

According to AHS, the incident was also presented at a recent webinar hosted by the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors, where an AHS Environmental Public Health inspector gave a presentation to public health inspector staff “for learning and development purposes.”

Girard said the hotel contacted families after the incident and followed up when the investigation findings became available.

“We are sorry this happened and recognize how distressing it was for the children and their families,” he said.

Despite the changes made before the pool reopened, for at least one family, that hasn’t been enough.

“We don’t feel it was taken care of, and we would never stay there again,” Kastern said.